


Dark Beginnings

by EvilOtter



Series: The Early Life of Tom Riddle [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-08 07:11:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14689098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilOtter/pseuds/EvilOtter
Summary: On the cold night of December 31, 1926 the world awaited the dawning of a new year.  But in a dingy orphanage in London a new life started, a life that would shake the wizarding world.This story focuses on the years immediately before He Who Shall Not Be Named meets Dumbledore and enters Hogwarts.





	1. An Odd Child

**Author's Note:**

> All recognizable characters, locations and events belong to J. K. Rowling.
> 
> This story was originally posted under the same title and under the pen name Evil Otter on harrypotterfanfiction.com which closed down on 4-28-18.

The harsh December wind whipped down the narrow streets of London to collide with the stark brick building that many children called home. It would not have been the first choice of a home for any of them, not even a second choice. But the fact of the matter was that none of the building’s residents had a choice in the matter at all. They lived their dreary existence day by day in a surrounding that, while clean and well kept, could hardly be described as joyful. There was little joy to be had for any of them.

A small boy, described by some as rather odd or even frightening, looked out through the window of his upper story room to view the snow covered street below. The scene didn’t bring a smile to his face as it would have for another child his age, nothing much had that capability. He continued to gaze out through the window as a group of children rushed by the open door to his room on their way to the stairs and the door outside. One boy faltered in his path to look, for a moment, at the room’s occupant and acted as though he was going to say something. But he changed his mind and followed the rest of the noisy lot down the stairs to the snow outside.

Left alone with his thoughts the boy gave the frivolities below nothing more than mild interest. The threadbare coat that he might have worn hung in the cupboard that stood in the corner of his room and would have been easy to retrieve, but he made no movement towards it instead staying seated.

A young woman walked by the open door and noticed him sitting silently and the window. Normally a child would only be looking out at those playing if they were being disciplined, but this was not the case with the boy. She stopped and looked at him with concern, the boy simply didn’t behave like the other children. He was withdrawn to the point of being almost unapproachable, but she felt that she had to try.

“Aren’t you going to go outside and play in the snow with the others?”

The only response that she received was a nearly palpable silence as he continued to gaze out through the window. She was about to say more to the boy when one of the children capering about in the snow suddenly began screaming as he clutched his arm and then collapsed in the snow. The young woman, hearing the screams, hurried down the stairs to join the matron as they charged to the stricken child.

“Herbert, what has happened? Are you all right?”

The screaming boy gritted his teeth as he clutched his arm and shook his head. The matron turned to the young woman who stood beside her.

“Martha, go fetch Doctor Barlow immediately.”

As the matron helped the stricken child into the building Martha hurried out through the gates to run the two blocks to the home of the doctor. Neither of them noticed the boy who still watched from his window above and smiled silently to himself.

*****

“The arm is broken,” the old doctor announced as he finished his cursory examination of the injured limb. “I will set it and he will be in a cast for a few weeks, but he will heal quickly. That is one benefit that the young have. How did he get injured?”

“I really do not know, Doctor. The children were outside playing in the snow and then he started screaming. When we arrived outside he was on the ground holding his arm.”

“He must have slipped and fallen. This happens often enough in the snow.”

“I thought that also, but the other children all say that he started screaming BEFORE he collapsed to the ground.”

“Perhaps one of the other children threw a snowball at him that contained a stone. The cold can make one’s bones brittle.”

“They all insist that none of them had thrown anything at him,” Mrs. Cole insisted.

“This is all quite odd but, I think that if you question long enough one of them will come forward with an honest answer.”

“I will let you get back to your work, Doctor, while I tend to the other children.”

Neither of the adults had seen the small boy as he crept down the stairs and then sat quietly as he listened to them. Mrs. Cole never saw the boy as she walked into the room where the other children still sat under the watchful eye of Martha and then closed the door behind her.

“Are they all present?”

“All but Tom, but he was in his room at the time so I didn’t see the need to bring him in to this affair.”

Mrs. Cole turned to the gathered children who sat silently as they waited for her wrath.

“I want to know what happened to Herbert and I want to know now! Billy Stubbs, you were fighting with Herbert just yesterday. What did you do to him today?”

“Nothing, Ma’am.”

“Do not lie to me, Billy Stubbs, what did you do?”

“I told you Ma’am, I did nothing to him. I was playing with Eric when Herbert started wailing. He just grabbed his arm and then fell down howling.”

The woman turned her attention to the named boy and advanced on him as he cowered before her.

“Eric Whalley, what part in this affair did you have?”

“No part, ma’am,” he answered as he shivered.

“Someone here is lying to me and I intend to find out who it is! When I find out who they are I shall give them a taste of honesty that they will not forget for a very long time, especially when they sit down.”

She whirled to face a young girl who sat in another chair.

“Amy Benson, you were outside with all of them. What did you see?”

“Nothing, Mrs. Cole, Billy told you the truth. Herbert just grabbed his arm, started crying and then fell down.”

“Rubbish! You are all lying, that much is easy to see. You shall all go to bed tonight without dinner and tomorrow, when you are not doing your lessons, you shall be so busy cleaning this building that you will not have the time to play. Now go to your rooms!”

The boy, hearing the entire conversation, rose and hurried to his room before any could see that he had been listening to the happenings. He closed his door and smiled to himself as he crossed the small room and sat down on his bed.

_‘It serves them all right, they all think that they are better than I because they knew their parents and I did not.’_

He was still sitting on the bed when the door opened and Mrs. Cole stepped into the room.

“Tom, dear, are you feeling well? Martha tells me that you did not want to go outside to play with the other children today.”

“I am feeling quite well, Mrs. Cole, why do you ask?”

“No reason, Tom, I am just concerned that you do not wish to play with the other children”

“I do not wish to play with the other children.”

Mrs. Cole thought for a moment before continuing.

“Tom, Martha tells me that you were sitting at your window watching them play, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Tom, did you see what happened to Herbert?”

“No, Mrs. Cole, I did not.”

“But you did see him fall down?”

“Yes, I saw him fall down. Perhaps the fat dolt simply slipped and fell, did you consider that?”

“That is not very kind to call him that, Tom. I did consider that, but the other children say that he was screaming before he fell.”

“Then they are lying.”

“Then what happened to make him fall?”

“I do not know!”

The woman stood silent for a moment before the boy looked at her once again.

_'GO!'_

Mrs. Cole suddenly felt an intense desire to leave, she turned and left the room as the boy watched her go. She closed the door silently behind her and was soon walking down the stairs, grateful to be out of his presence. A moment later she was sitting in her office behind her desk as she opened a drawer to pull out a bottle of gin. A shaking hand pulled the stopper from the bottle and then poured a glass half full of the amber liquid. She picked up the glass and took a swift drink, grimacing as the liquid poured down her throat.

He was a strange one, Tom was. He had been born here and had resided here ever since. She had been present the night that he was born and had watched as his mother died shortly after. The woman had spoken very little the name that she was bestowing on her child and her reasoning for it. Beyond that she had been silent, giving only her name, and now lay buried in a lonely grave in a pauper’s yard under a blanket of snow. Mrs. Cole thought about her frequently as she wondered where the woman had come from and if her family missed her, or even thought about her. She wondered also if they ever thought about the child that she had borne.

It was doubtful that they did, probably they were glad to be shut of the scandal that the pregnancy would have created. Many young women had left their infants here at Wool’s Orphange over the years. It was always the same, a ring of the bell at the door and then the finding of a small wrapped child lying on the step. Others came here after a tragedy when their parents were lost to death and no family existed to take them in or did not want them.

She had seen many children leave the orphanage when prospective parents decided that they wanted a particular child. But, Tom was different, as an infant he should have been desired by a childless couple, but every couple who had looked at him had decided no look elsewhere after spending a few moments with him. One family had taken him in for a day and then had brought him back stating that he was rather odd and frightened their small girl. He had been less than a year old at the time.

Since then the interest in the boy had waned and Mrs. Cole knew that he would likely be here until he was old enough that he had to leave the orphanage. She hoped that the boy would find a chance at an apprenticeship where he would learn a trade that would provide a living for him. He was certainly smart enough, in fact he often displayed a nearly chilling intelligence.

She took another drink from the glass as she considered some of the strange happenings that had occurred at the orphanage during the last few months, some of them dreadfully frightening. A pet rabbit of one of the children had been found hanging from the rafters and none of the adults was certain how it had gotten there. It had belonged to Billy Stubbs whom Tom had had a conflict with earlier that day and he had denied any involvement. His claim seemed plausible enough because she hadn’t been able to determine how the boy could have gotten up there, especially carrying a struggling rabbit.

Mrs. Cole opened the file that she kept on Tom and reviewed a comment that she had written in his history.

_April 3, 1934 - Tom is extremely quiet and aloof. He rarely displays any effort to associate with the other children at play time. This tendency has been apparent since he was a very small child. He displays a remarkable intelligence, but seems interested in odd things that often frighten the other children. The rest of the staff and I have often myself felt uncomfortable around him. He has a commanding gaze and demeanor about him and I wonder what has caused the child to behave in this manner._

The entry had been made last year when the child was not yet eight years of age and Mrs. Cole wondered just how much longer she could remain in his presence. Although she had tried to make a special place in her heart for him, as she had for all of the other orphans that she had cared for over the years, Tom was different. He did not want to be included and did everything that he could to make it difficult to want to help him.

She finished draining the glass and glanced at the clock on the wall of her office. There would only be the two children eating tonight, Herbert and Tom. Martha could tend to them while she made certain that the others went to bed directly after their baths. It would do them good to get the extra rest, they would need it tomorrow for the cleaning that she wanted done.

Tom walked down the stairs to enter the dining room to find only two places set. Martha entered the room to find him staring at the table with the strange gaze that he often wore.

“Dinner will be ready directly, Tom, so go ahead and wash up. It will only be you and Herbert eating tonight, the other children will be going to bed without dinner once their baths are finished.”

The boy nodded silently and walked into the boy’s lavatory to wash his hands and face. A moment later, Herbert entered the room to do his best at cleaning up. Tom watched silently as the other boy struggled to wash his hands, the grimaces were almost comical and he forced himself not to laugh at the obvious discomfort that Herbert was feeling.

“Does it hurt bad, Herbert?”

The other boy nodded his head furiously as tears ran down his face.

“Let me help you with that, why don’t you.”

Herbert turned towards the other boy as Tom began to use the cloth to clean the hand of the other child. The job finished, Tom hung the cloth back up and then turned to leave the room, he barely paused when he heard Herbert speak to him.

“Thanks, Tom.”

Tom grinned horribly as he left the room, he was nearly to the table when there was a crash from the lavatory and a terrible squeal of pain. Martha rushed past Tom and entered the lavatory to find Herbert on the floor writhing in pain once again. Mrs. Cole burst from her office and hurried in as well to find her assistant kneeling beside the boy.

“What has happened here, Herbert?”

“I fell and landed on my arm,” the boy managed to squeak out between sobs.

“Martha, go and fetch Doctor Barlow again. I will help him back into the infirmary and then feed Tom.”

The girl helped Mrs. Cole get Herbert back onto his feet and, as they did, both wondered how he could have fallen again. The floor was completely dry and there was nothing on the floor to trip over. Tom had been seen outside the room when Herbert had fallen and therefore was blameless. Martha wrapped her shawl around her thin shoulders and hurried out into the cold wind to race once again to bring the old doctor to the orphanage. Mrs. Cole helped Herbert to the infirmary to wait for the doctor and then re turned to tend to Tom.

“Is Herbert going to be all right?”

Mrs. Cole turned to the boy with a surprised look on her face. He had never shown any sort of feeling for any of the other children and now he was suddenly expressing sympathy. She leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“Yes, Tom, Herbert is going to be just fine as soon as Doctor Barlow gets here and tends to his arm.”

“I helped him wash his hand earlier in the lavatory because he cannot do it by himself.”

“You were very kind to help him with that and that sort of kindness deserves a reward. How would you like a piece of chocolate cake?”

“I would like that very much, Mrs. Cole.”

“Then clean your plate and you shall have your dessert afterwards.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cole.”

“You are very welcome, Tom.”

The boy sat down at the table to eat the plate of food before him, meals were about the only time that he acted like a normal child. The front door opened suddenly as Martha returned with the old doctor in tow. Tom shivered slightly as the cold wind was admitted and he turned towards Martha as she admitted the physician.

_‘CLOSE THE BLOODY DAMN DOOR!’_

Martha, not understanding why, made haste to close the door and then looked around to see only Tom sitting at the table. He couldn’t have been the source of the voice in her head that had commanded her to close the door, could he? The doctor hurried into the infirmary to begin tending once again to the injured child while Mrs. Cole placed a small plate with a piece of chocolate cake on the table next to the boy. Then the matron walked into the infirmary to direct Martha to see to the baths of the children before sending them to bed.

Tom sat happily at the table as he finished his dinner and then devoured the cake. His meal finished he carried the plates to the sink and placed them in to be washed. Then he turned to a small case that stood in one corner of the dining room, inside it was a small brass elephant that he had often coveted but had never been able to obtain. Now was his chance while the women were occupied.

“Open,” he commanded the locked door of the case. He stood silently as the door unlatched itself and then the elephant was his. He pushed the door shut and then gave it yet another command. “Lock!” There was a nearly silent click as the lock sealed the door and he tried it once again, it was locked. He walked quietly away and then up the stairs to his small room where the captive elephant joined the rest of his trophies. He closed the small box to shield his belongings from prying eyes and then closed his own as he thought to himself.

_‘Poor Herbert, too bad that you slipped and fell once again, perhaps I need to help you more often. Maybe I can help you on the stairs.’_

He was still sitting there when Martha came to tell him that it was time for his bath to prepare for bed. Later that night he would slide under the covers and dream about what he would do next.


	2. Billy's Lament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The disappearance of the elephant creates a problem for one of the orphans and Tom exercises his abilities.

In the month since Herbert’s accidents life had been rather mundane for the residents of the orphanage. All of the children had continued to insist that they knew nothing about what had happened to the boy and this angered Mrs. Cole. She wasn’t used to children lying to her and then getting away with it. All of the children had paid for their insolence with labor that was as harsh as she could make it.

Only Tom had escaped the wrath of the matron, much to the displeasure of the other orphans, as he had been witnessed in the hall when the boy had fallen in the lavatory and had been in his room when Herbert had fallen outside. The boy, instead of being punished, had become rather a bit of a celebrity for his compassion towards Herbert. He made every effort to be there when the other boy needed assistance and thus had ingratiated himself with the adults.

Mrs. Cole was angry about something else, however. A small brass elephant had vanished from a locked display cupboard where it had been housed for decades. The woman was at a bit of a loss as to how the item had been taken because it had vanished from a cupboard that no one had the key for. The door to the cupboard had not been opened during the entire time that she had resided at the orphanage and, according to what she had been told, for decades before that.

She had noticed the disappearance of the elephant after realizing that something was different in the room. A closer examination proved that the elephant was indeed gone and had not simply fallen over. That one of the children had taken the item enraged her and she had searched all of their rooms after declaring that, when she found it, the person responsible would face severe discipline. But the elephant had remained missing.

Obviously one of the children had found the key and had pilfered the small item. Mrs. Cole had considered all possibilities and decided that the thief almost certainly had to be Billy Stubbs. The boy had been apprehended stealing from a local shop and the constable that had been involved had indicated that it wasn’t the first time that Billy’s tendencies had come to his attention. The boy had been banned from the store and was now being watched by the local authorities.

Martha sat in the dining room across the table from the matron while the children labored to straighten and clean their rooms.

“I am very certain that Billy is the one who stole the elephant, Martha.”

“But the key to that cupboard has been missing for years. How could he have opened it, taken the elephant and then locked it again.”

“Honestly, Martha, you can be quite dull at times," Mrs. Cole answered with open exasperation. "Obviously he found the key and opened the cupboard, took the elephant and then locked the cupboard again. I have every reason to believe that when we find the elephant the key will not be far away from it. I intend to search the rooms again.”

Neither woman realized that Tom sat on the stairs listening to their conversation. His normally sullen expression brightened as Mrs. Cole explained her suspicions to Martha. It was obvious that the disappearance of the elephant angered Mrs. Cole and the fact that Billy had a habit of lifting small objects made him the prime suspect. This was an unexpected, but welcome development and the boy rose from his seat with a plan forming in his head.

“Billy, you really ought to not steal,” he murmured to himself. “Sooner or later, you are going to get caught and Mrs. Cole will get her switch after you.”

Tom really hated to part with the elephant, but he hated Billy more. The fat lout always seemed to find a way to foist his share of the work off on others and Tom was his favorite person to do it to. Billy ruled the other orphans through threats and, while all of them were tired of it, none had the courage to inform the adults.

Tom silently crept to the place where the elephant resided. His small hand closed around the brass figure and then used it to tuck the item into his pocket before slipping back out into the corridor. Tom could hear the larger boy grumbling about having to clean his room again as he approached the door to Billy’s room. Tom concentrated for moment as he pictured Billy leaving his room to venture downstairs.

_‘GO!’_

Billy, just finishing his room, got the sudden urge to go downstairs. He carelessly tossed his coat into the cupboard that occupied the corner of this room before closing the door and then exiting the room. He wasn’t certain why he wanted to go downstairs, especially since Mrs. Cole had told all of them that none were to go downstairs until she had checked their rooms, but he did. Billy walked down the corridor and descended the stairs unaware of Tom’s presence.

His target gone Tom hurried into the room of the older boy and hurriedly searched for a likely hiding place. He knew that he wouldn’t have a lot of time before Mrs. Cole and Billy came back to the room. The closed door of the cupboard gave him inspiration, because above that door was a small ledge that the elephant would fit on. He pulled the door open and, a moment later, the elephant was neatly tucked on the top of the door frame. He closed the door and slipped out of the room just as Billy encountered Mrs. Cole.

“William, why are you down here instead of being upstairs cleaning your room?”

“My room is cleaned and straightened.”

“Are you not forgetting something, William?”

“My room is cleaned and straightened, Ma’am,” he said after a moment of thought.

“Then I do not imagine that you will object to my examination of your room,” Mrs. Cole answered as she rose from the chair that she was occupying.

“No, Ma’am.”

The boy silently followed the matron as she walked down the corridor and ascended the stairs. The other orphans whose rooms were in that hallway stood outside their doors as she appeared on the second floor.

“Any child standing in this hall whose room is not cleaned and straightened shall get a taste of my switch,” she announced before entering the room of the boy who was following her.

Tom could hear Mrs. Cole as she examined Billy’s room and one thought came to his mind.

_‘LOOK INSIDE HIS CUPBOARD ABOVE THE DOOR!’_

He had no sooner though about it when he heard the shout from Mrs. Cole.

“William Stubbs, you are a filthy little thief! We give you a place to reside and food to eat and you have the nerve to steal. Explain yourself, young man!”

“But I did not take that, Mrs. Cole. I cannot explain how it got there.”

“You cannot or will not, William?”

“Ma’am, I am telling you the truth, I did not take it.”

“I put up with many things, William, but I shall not tolerate thievery. Come downstairs with me this instant!”

The rest of the orphans, unsure about what was occurring, watched as Mrs. Cole emerged from the room. Billy Stubbs followed closely, in fact he had no choice but to for Mrs. Cole clutched his left ear as she pulled him down the stairs.

The pair vanished and the children hurried to the rail at the top of the stairs to listen as best they could.

“She’s going to use her switch on him,” Eric Whalley said quickly.

“We better hope our rooms pass her inspection or she will be using it on us,” another boy answered.

“What do you suppose that he took that has her in such a state?”

“Well, I know that someone stole that elephant out of the cupboard in the dining room,” Tom responded.

Their conversation ended as the door to Mrs. Cole’s office closed with a slam and the strained their ears to catch bits of the situation below. A moment later they could make out Billy’s pleas and then a sharp sound followed by a yelp of pain. These sounds repeated themselves nine more times before they ceased and the door to Mrs. Cole’s office opened to release a sobbing Billy. The matron ushered him back up the stairs and the children scurried back to their positions by their doors. Billy stopped at his door and stood there, tears flowing down his cheeks, as he gingerly rubbed his afflicted backside.

The inspection that followed was cursory at best as Mrs. Cole, her fury somewhat abated, rushed through the rooms giving their waiting residents a grunt of approval. Each child breathed a sigh of relief as the matron left their room and Tom watched with amusement as the woman stopped in front of Billy to fix him with a baleful glare.

“Young man, you shall go to bed without supper tonight! Instead you shall spend some of the time cleaning the lavatories, both of them! They are to be spotless or you shall be punished further. Now, get downstairs and start cleaning! You may begin with the girl’s lavatory.”

The other children watched as the boy, thoroughly defeated, descended the stairs without his normal grumbling or arguments.

“Since your rooms are in good standing you shall all report to the classroom to work on your arithmetic assignment.”

Fearful of punishment the children hurried down the stairs to get to their seats in the classroom. Billy watched them go and wondered who was responsible for his predicament. Tom was the most likely, but how had he gotten it out of the locked cupboard and then hidden it in Billy’s own room. He thought about this for the entire time that he was scrubbing the floors and fixtures of the lavatories.

“I don’t know how you did it Tom, but when I find out I will give you a beating that you will remember for a long time.”

He finally finished in time for the flood of boys as they entered the lavatory to wash their hands and faces in preparation for dinner. He rose swiftly from his position on the floor as Tom entered the room and stepped into the path of the younger boy.

“You think that your very clever, don’t you Tom?”

The younger boy looked up at Billy with the same vacant stare that he always wore.

“I do not understand, Billy.”

“You stole that bloody elephant and then hid it in my room for that old loon to find.”

“You’re daft!”

“Am I now? Who is it that skulks around here listening to other people talking when they do not know that he is around?”

There was no response to the questions other than the expressionless stare. The older boy, infuriated by his inability to crack the icy calm of Tom, reached forward and shoved him. The other boys in the lavatory stood wide eyed as the conflict grew and Billy turned on them.

“Not a word to Mrs. Cole or you’re next!”

Tom had not fallen when pushed, but instead continued the expressionless stare. This angered Billy further and he pushed the smaller boy again.

“I really worry about you Billy, you don’t look well. In fact you look sick, is something wrong?”

Billy was about to strike Tom when he suddenly bent over clutching his middle. Pain more intense that any he had ever felt before coursed through him and he collapsed onto the floor. Tom stood over him dispassionately and watched as he writhed in agony.

Abruptly Tom broke out of his trance and raced from the room to find Mrs. Cole. Moments later he returned with her and Martha was sent out once again for Doctor Barlow. The young woman cursed mightily as she trudged through the growing snow drifts on the way to the home of the doctor and never saw Tom as he watched her from a window. Only then did a smile cross his face.

***

When the aging doctor straightened from Billy’s side it was with a grim diagnosis.

“His appendix it is, I’ll have to remove it or he will not survive.”

“But he will live, won’t he?”

“Oh, yes, the lad should survive, but he will be bed ridden for a few days while he recovers. We will need to get him to my carriage to take him to my home. I will need Martha’s services to do that and will likely need her to stay the night helping me watch over him.”

“But, don’t you have a nurse?”

“She fell on the ice and broke her leg just this morning.”

“Very well,” Mrs. Cole answered before turning to the girl. “Make certain that the children are fed and prepared for bed before you go.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The young girl turned to leave the room only to encounter Tom who watched the scene before him with the same blank expression that he always wore.

“Tom, you need to finish your dinner and get ready for bed. Now of with you before Mrs. Cole finds her switch.”

The boy turned and walked back down the corridor to return to the bustling dinner table. Martha gave him a disapproving look before she stepped into her room to gather what she would need for her stay at the home of the doctor.

Tom watched her vanish as he took another spoonful of soup into his mouth. _‘Poor Billy,’_ he thought, _‘you really are very lucky that it was not worse because next time it might be.’_

Moments later, Doctor Barlow, Mrs. Cole and Martha helped Billy out of the room that he was in and then down the corridor to the front door so carefully walk to the waiting carriage. A gust of snow laden wind rushed into the building as the door was opened and those at the table shivered until the door was closed again. The children continued to eat quietly and were still doing so when Mrs. Cole re-entered the building. She walked purposefully to the dining room where she ladled some of the soup into her own bowl.

“Is Billy going to be all right?” Tom asked.

“The doctor is not certain, but hopeful. Billy’s appendix shall have to be removed and that is a risky operation.”

“Then Billy could die?”

“Yes, Billy could die, but enough of this. You all need to finish your dinner and get ready for bed. You will not take baths tonight, just get upstairs after you wash up and get into your night clothes. I want you all in bed by eight o’clock.”

She watched as the children finished their meals and one by one carried their bowl and spoon into the kitchen where they placed them in the sink. Then they returned to the dining room where they retrieved the tin cup before walking to the lavatories to clean up and brush their teeth. It was not long before the lone girl emerged and then hurried up the stairs to her room. Amy wouldn’t be alone for much longer; Mrs. Cole had been informed that another girl and her brother would be arriving within the week.

Tom was the first of the boys to leave the lavatory and walk up the stairs to his room. Although he hated Billy with a passion he didn’t like the thought of the boy dying. The thought of death frightened Tom, it always had. That fear had been compounded when he had accidently learned that his mother had died shortly after his birth. Although Mrs. Cole had repeatedly assured him that he was not responsible for his mother’s death, the thought plagued the boy and dominated his mind. He climbed into bed and pulled up his blanket as he tried to go to sleep. He would fail.

Several hours later, while Tom and the rest of the children lay in bed, Doctor Barlow was busy removing the appendix of Billy Stubbs. The boy was taking the surgery well and the doctor was certain that, given adequate time, the boy would make a full recovery. He finally rose from his bent position after putting the last stitch into the abdomen of the boy in his surgery. Martha had been a useful assistant and he was grateful for her presence.

“He will sleep for several hours; we will have to keep an eye on him until he wakes.”

The weary girl nodded silently before assisting the doctor in moving the patient to a bed. While Martha finished dressing Billy, Doctor Barlow had time to think about what had happened. The appendix that he had removed from the boy had not appeared to be diseased; in fact it had not even been swollen. It was rather odd but then again he had seen many odd things during his time as a doctor. He shook his head and then sat down at his desk to draft a bill that he would present to the authorities that funded Wool’s Orphanage. The fact that his nurse had not been present to assist with the surgery was a bonus. The girl from the orphanage would only receive a fraction of what his nurse would have been paid.

Hours later Billy would wake up in terrible discomfort and Martha would rise from the uncomfortable chair to walk back to the orphanage. If there had been any thoughts of getting some much needed rest on her mind they would be rudely dispelled by Mrs. Cole insisting that she fulfill her duties. There were new children to prepare for and those who already resided there needed to be tended to. She would spend the remainder of the day catching up on what had not been done the night before.

Tom sat at his place in the classroom while Mrs. Cole presented their grammar lesson. The matron droned on incessantly about proper pronunciation and enunciation explaining that they couldn’t count on gaining proper employment if they couldn’t speak properly or at least that was what she preached to them. None of the children believed her for they had all seen many former residents of the orphanage living on the streets of London taking whatever work they could find, some of the jobs less than savory. Now was especially bad with the world in a depression and the situation with Germany getting worse.

Tom started from his daze when he was nudged by Eric Whalley.

“She’s calling on you, Tom,” the other boy whispered.

Tom looked up from his desk to find the matron standing over him, hands on hips and a disapproving glare directed on him.

“Into the corner you go, young man! I will have NO daydreaming in my classroom! You shall stay there until I tell you otherwise, now go!”

Tom rose from his seat and walked to the corner where he stood facing the wall. Mrs. Cole couldn’t see the anger in his face and would have been frightened if she could have. She returned to her place at the head of the room to continue the lessons and was quite involved in this while Tom was thinking less than kind things about her. The anger festered within him and one thought filled his mind, the idea that he was tired of her droning voice.

_‘SHUT UP!'_

Mrs. Cole, in preparation for a new sentence, suddenly became very quiet. In fact, the children who looked up at her in anticipation of her next sentence saw their teacher standing wide-eyed, hand at her throat, while her mouth moved but not a sound came out. The woman looked terrified as her students, save one, stared at her in disbelief and fear. She motioned for them to leave the room before she too bolted from it.

Martha, still grumbling as she dealt with the dishes left over from dinner the night before and breakfast only a few hours earlier nearly dropped the pitcher that she was putting into the cupboard. She stared in shock at the matron who had come charging into the kitchen.

“Mrs. Cole, is something wrong?” she asked when she was able to speak.

There was no vocal response, but rather wild gesticulating on the part of the stricken woman. Martha realized that she had no choice, she dried her hands, grabbed her coat and hurried out to find Doctor Barlow. The girl would remain at the home of the doctor watching over Billy while the old man made another trip to Wool’s Orphanage in response to a frantic summons.

Upstairs in his room, Tom sat at his window and smiled to himself at the plight of the other residents of the orphanage.

“You will all do what I want or I will make you hurt a lot worse than you already do!”


	3. Death at the Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death visits the orphanage as Tom explores what he can do and he makes a vow that will have terrible consequences for many.

Wool’s Orphanage had returned to normal since the day two months before when Mrs. Cole had been “taken in a fit” as diagnosed by Doctor Barlow. Her ability to speak had returned only a minute or two after his arrival and he had announced that her fright had been calmed by his presence. Therefore her overstressed vocal cords had relaxed and allowed her to speak once again. He had, nonetheless, prescribed an elixir to calm her vocal cords and she took it religiously. The fact that the old doctor was completely in the dark about her condition hadn’t prevented him from drafting a bill for her care and presenting it to her.

Billy had also returned to the orphanage and, although very tender for a while, had wasted no time in returning to his ways. The younger brother and sister who had just arrived had become his main targets although he also kept Tom in his crosshairs.

Tom, for his part, had maneuvered to keep as much attention from him as he could. He had actually been seen playing with the new boy, though none of the adults realized that it was a sham. His mind was constantly working and one day inspiration came to him in the strangest way.

Daily the orphans were awakened by the horses that drew the wagon that delivered milk. The man who drove the wagon had been chastised by Mrs. Cole repeatedly, but nothing had changed. Now Tom was sitting in his room watching the activity on the streets below. As he watched the familiar clatter and clamor of the wagon approaching for its return to the stables came to his attention. He watched the driver, hunched over in his seat and holding the reins, release one hand to reach into his pocket for his bottle. Tom’s focus, however, was on the horses.

Suddenly there was a horrible screech from the horses as each experienced a sharp burning pain on their haunches. They bolted forward, the sudden movement throwing the unprepared driver from his seat. He tumbled to the ground and had only an instant to live before the rear wheel ran over him. Screams and shouts filled the narrow streets as the runaways careened through the morning traffic. Several school children narrowly avoided being flattened as the horses charged out into the busier main street. The screams, shouts and other sounds of the ensuing pandemonium were audible to those in the orphanage and many of the children raced outside to view the excitement. Moments later, their screams joined those of others as they recoiled from the sight of the body of the crushed driver.

Martha and Mrs. Cole hurried to usher them back into the building while also attempting to block their view of the bloody scene. Tom sat in his room above, his view unobstructed, as a crowd gathered around the stricken man lying on the blood-stained cobblestones. He grinned as the constables tried to steer onlookers away from the body and only turned from the window when Martha pushed open his door and ordered him away from the window.

“Tom, Mrs. Cole wants you downstairs right now. It does you no good seeing that.”

“But, what happened?”

“A terrible accident, Tom, old Fred was killed.”

“Well at least he will not be waking us anymore.”

“That is a terrible thing to say, Tom. Think about his family and how they will feel.”

“I would not know how they feel, I never had a family.”

“I know Tom and I am terribly sorry for what I said, but we must keep them in our thoughts.”

“Why should I keep them in my thoughts? I do not even know them.”

Martha approached the boy and put her arm around him as she bent down to look into his eyes.

“Because, Tom, that is how things are done. You shall understand one day when you are grown up.”

“I suppose I will, but why does she want me downstairs?”

“It is because she is afraid that you might see things that you should not. Now, let us go downstairs, okay?”

Tom nodded and allowed himself to be lead down to the dining room. He and Martha were neatly to their destination when they heard the crack of a rifle that spelled the end of the life of a horse. Only one member of the wagon team would survive the day and be led to its stall. Old Fred would soon occupy his lonely, cold grave and the horse would be carted away. The badly battered milk wagon would swiftly be scavenged for wood and usable parts for it was no longer in any shape to do work.

Mrs. Cole kept the children at the dinner table as they worked on their arithmetic and only allowed them to go as far down the hall as the lavatories when they did rise. Finally she allowed them to go when Martha informed her that the body had been removed and the street had been washed down.

“Tom,” Mrs. Cole said suddenly, “I have to go to the market and today is your day if you wish to go.

“I would like that very much, Mrs. Cole.”

“Then run along and get your coat. I will be waiting at the front door for you.”

Tom hurried up the stairs to retrieve his coat and was soon running back down to meet the matron. This was a rare treat, being allowed to go to the market, and no child ever misbehaved when it was near their turn to go. It didn’t matter to them that they ended up pulling the grocery laden wagon, they were away from the orphanage and the mundane existence that that lived.

The boy dutifully pulled the wagon behind him as he walked beside the woman and they were soon outside the market. He rolled it to a stop beside the building and followed her into the shop. As always he marveled at the shelves filled with goods, but what had his attention were the jars of sweets that lined the counter. Because he had recently had a birthday he would be permitted to have a piece of candy of his choosing.

“What type of sweet would you like, Tom?”

Tom thought for a moment before pointing at a jar filled with brightly colored hard round candies.

“Could I have one of those please?”

A moment later the boy was sucking happily on a large round candy ball that was like nothing that he had ever before experienced. He watched as the shopkeeper and his helper filled Mrs. Cole’s order as he wished that he could have more candy but he knew that was impossible. He thought about reaching into the jar to get one himself but he would be seen, that much was certain, and the punishment would be severe. There had to be some way and , as he looked around the shop, he knew what that way was.

_‘FALL!’_

Abruptly the attention of all, save Tom, was on the loud creaking noise that began to emanate from some shelves that lined the far wall. Suddenly the shelves and their contents began spilling onto the floor despite the best efforts of the employees and several male customers. The remainder of the customers watched in awe as shelf after shelf collapsed.

The distraction gave Tom the opportunity that he needed and his hand was soon swiftly transferring candy into his pocket. This transfer ended when a firm hand dropped onto his shoulder and, startled, he looked up into the angry eyes of a constable. The officer had been alerted by the commotion and had entered the shop to determine the problem. In the process he had collared a thief and held the boy tightly until he heard a voice inside his head.

_‘FORGET THIS AND LEAVE!’_

He released Tom as his eyes went out of focus and then turned to walkout of the building. Tom watched as the officer approached the door and then hesitated as though reconsidering his actions.

_‘GO!’_

The officer strode out of the building and walked away, travelling nearly two streets away before stopping to shake his head and wonder how he had gotten where he was. Finally he shook his head again and continued on his way.

Finally the shelves stopped collapsing, about the time that Tom felt that he had enough candy, and the shopkeeper, after much anguish, filled Mrs. Cole’s order while his help began the job of collecting whatever was still intact. The young boy cursed under his breath as he realized the amount of labor that awaited him when the time came to right the fallen shelves.

Her order full, Mrs. Cole helped Tom place the bundles into the wagon and the pair headed back to the orphanage. Mrs. Cole didn’t notice the slightly bulging pocket in the boy’s coat and the shopkeeper didn’t notice that the candy jar was a lot emptier than it should have been. Many streets away, the constable was busy dealing with a theft from a vendor and had quite forgotten about the shop, the mess and the thief that he had caught.

When they arrived at the orphanage Tom helped empty the wagon before hurrying up to his room where he quietly closed the door. He sat down on his bed and emptied the twenty candy balls onto the blanket. Moments later they were concealed in a box that he pushed to the back of the cupboard and hid it under his other pair of pants.

 _‘It was close today,’_ he thought, _‘that damned constable nearly nabbed me. Too bad he forgot what he was doing and left the shop.’_

Mrs. Cole was busy with Martha as they put the groceries onto the shelves in the pantry. As the women worked Mrs. Cole talked about the collapse of the shelves and the resulting avalanche of goods.

“It was the oddest thing, Martha, those shelves have stood in that shop for years. They looked as solid as they did when I would go with my Mum, but they simply began to fall over. Thankfully no one was injured but the shop is certainly a mess.”

“Tom is all right then?”

“Oh, yes, he was nowhere near the shelves that fell. Still, I think that it must have frightened him because he was nearly silent the entire trip back. Why do you ask?”

“I just happened to notice that he ran directly up to his room after the wagon was unloaded.”

“You never know what to expect with him, but he was as good as gold the entire time that we were gone.”

While the women talked and Tom sat in his room the shopkeeper, taking a break from cleaning, happened to glance at the candy jars on his counter. They had all been nearly full at the start of the day but now one was almost half empty. He recalled selling only one piece of candy today and that had been right before the collapse of the shelves. Obviously the boy could not have caused the shelves to fall, but he could be responsible for the loss of merchandise. He put down his broom and started for the door after giving his hired boy strict instructions about what needed to be done before leaving for the day. Then he waked out of the shop after putting up his sign informing customers that he was closed for the day. That done he wrapped his coat around his thin frame and set out for the orphanage. He could not afford the loss to theft and would not tolerate thieves in his place of business.

“It has to be the boy,” he mumbled to himself. “He was standing by the counter when the shelves fell.

Many minutes later Tom was coming down the stairs when the shopkeeper entered the small courtyard in front of the building. The boy’s eyes widened when he saw who was approaching and his mind began to run in circles. The sharp rapping at the door made up his mind as Mrs. Cole approached the door to answer the summons. Tom watched as the door opened and the shopkeeper’s mouth opened to speak.

_‘YOU LOOK LIKE YOU HAVE A WEAK HEART!  MAYBE IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO DIE!’_

Mrs. Cole, surprised by the appearance of the shopkeeper, started to invite the man in but was horrified when he suddenly reached up to clutch his chest. The man sagged to the ground as he tried to speak, but no sound came out. Mrs. Cole looked down at the stricken man and then at Tom.

“Tom, run to Doctor Barlow’s and then him that we need him here immediately!”

Tom ran up to his room, grabbed his coat and then ran back down the stairs. The boy hurried past Mrs. Cole and Martha as they tried to give aid to the obviously dying man. Once he was out of their sight, however, he slowed to a leisurely pace and was pleasantly surprised when he arrived at the doctor’s door to find a sign telling visitors that he as off seeing a patient.

The boy sat down on the step in front of the porch to consume more time. He thought about the events of the morning and smiled to himself before rising to walk back to the orphanage. The normally sullen expression brightened as he rounded the final corner to see the black wagon that took the dead to their graves sitting in front of the building. He stood aside as the tall undertaker dressed in black lifted the shrouded shopkeeper into his hearse with the help of a constable.

“Tom, what took you so long?” Mrs. Cole asked as the hearse began to leave the scene.

“Doctor Barlow was not at home. I thought that I saw his carriage going down the street and tried to catch him, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry that I was gone so long.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, Tom. I doubt that Doctor Barlow could have helped him. He is in the hands of God now.”

“Mrs. Cole?”

“Yes, Tom.”

“Why do people have to die?”

“Because no one can live forever.”

“But why?”

“Well, Tom, most people die when they are old and worn out. Others die because they become ill and cannot fight the disease, but the most tragic are those who die because of accidents or war.”

“Then every person dies?”

“Yes, Tom, sooner or later, for one reason or another, everyone dies. It does not matter how hard they fight it or what they try to do to delay it, eventually every person reaches the end of their life and dies.”

“Well, I’m not going to! I’m going to figure out how to live forever!”

“That would be a wondrous thing, Tom.”

The woman watched as the boy walked into the building before looking down at the spot where the shopkeeper had died. He had come to the orphanage for a reason and she wondered what it had been. He had looked angry before he collapsed, almost as if something was amiss but now they would never know. She shivered, though she wasn’t sure whether it was from the cold or the knowledge that two people had died unexpected deaths on or near her doorstep this day, before stepping back into the orphanage.

Tom hung his coat back in his cupboard and then checked the contents of his box. The purloined candy lay undisturbed and he smiled to himself as he closed the lid. An examination of the cupboard revealed a board loose enough to pull aside. Once it had been pulled open a small space large enough for the box lay exposed. He pushed the lid down snuggly and then placed the box into this secure hiding spot. A moment later the board was back into place and he realized that it was too loose for comfort. Any examination of the cupboard would betray his secret stash.

_'IN!'_

The loose nail slid back into its space tightly enough that only a hammer would be able to remove it. He actually, in hindsight, regretted the death of the shopkeeper because the candy hadn’t been his only prize during the trips that he had made to the business. Now he wondered who would run the shop and how vigilant they would be.

He sat back onto his bed as he thought about what Mrs. Cole had said about everyone dying. Tom didn’t want to think about death, it was death that had left him here in this horrid place. The boy had often wondered about his parents, who had they been and where was his father? Was his father still alive and, if he was, why hadn’t he come for his son?

Well, when he was grown up and away from the orphanage he was going to find out. He intended to learn all that he could about the man whose name he carried, for he had been told that his Christian name and surname were those of his father. Why had none of his family ever come to even ask about him, let alone visit him?

Anger flared within him as he considered the fact that perhaps they didn’t WANT him. He glanced out the window at the milling pigeons that made their homes on the rooftops and window sills. Even THEY had parents who cared for them when they were young, he was less than they. The anger within him became rage and only one thought filled his mind as he watched the birds.

_‘DIE! ALL OF YOU DIE!’_

Much to the horror of passersby a rain of dead pigeons began to fall upon them. One by one, and then in groups, the dead birds plummeted to the ground below, an occurrence duplicated as far as Tom could see. Screams and shouts echoed down the narrow street as people going about their lives were suddenly pelted by the feathered projectiles. The carnage brought several officers to the area and they stood just as baffled as the citizens who had called for them.

Tom smiled as the rain of dead birds came to an end. He realized, in that moment, just how different he was from the other orphans. They would never understand what he could do and he wondered just what else he was capable of. He made up his mind to figure his mind to figure this out and spent the rest of the day in his room while the thoughts played around in his consciousness.

The memory of the cupboard lock and the shelves in the shop gave him pause as he had never thought about it before. He glanced at the pillow on his bed and then he spoke.

_'MOVE!'_

For a moment the pillow remained stationary, but then trembled as his thoughts became more forceful. Suddenly it rose from the bed and shot across the room to collide with the wall. It started to fall to the floor but then stopped when Tom visualized it returning to his bed. It reversed its fall and soon was landing on the bed where it had been. The experiment finished Tom sat back and relaxed as he waited to be called for the meal that would soon be served.

_‘I don’t care what old Mrs. Cole says, I’m not going to die! I’m going to find the way to live forever and anyone who gets in my way will die very painfully!’_

Young Tom had no idea just how many people would die during his pursuit of eternal life and ultimate power. He also had no idea just how many would fear his very name and refuse to speak it, but that was years in the future.


	4. The Cave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The picnic was supposed to be fun for the orphans, but two of them would encounter something more terrifying than they could ever imagine. In the meantime, one would discover something new about himself.

The squeals and shouts of happy children echoed across the land as the children from Wool’s Orphanage capered around in the warmth of the sun. While the children played Mrs. Cole and Martha prepared the midday meal while they talked and supervised the children from afar. There was a pond nearby and they kept a careful eye on their charges, few of whom knew how to swim.

Tom sat under a tree as he relaxed after playing with some of the other boys, the activity had been rather rough and tumble only stopping when they were told to. As he sat under the tree he became aware of a rather small voice that was speaking to him.

“Little boy, can you hear me? You’re sssitting in front of the entrance to my home.”

Tom, startled by the occurrence, looked around and saw no one that could have spoken to him. It was then that the voice spoke again.

“Are you incapable of hearing? I want you to move ssso that I can go into my home.”

Tom looked around again and finally noticed a small snake that was coiled near him. He had seen many snakes in his life, but never one this close to him. Although he thought it rather absurd he spoke to the snake without expecting an answer.

“Did you speak to me?”

“Yesss! I want you to move sso that I can go into my home. Move now or I ssshall bite you asss hard asss I can!”

“I did not know that snakes could speak, have you ever spoken to a person before.”

“Many timesss, but you are the firssst that hasss actually ssspoken back to me. I thought that your kind wasss incapable of hearing.”

“This is very interesting, do all snakes speak as well as you can?”

“Sssome ssspeak even better than I, but have disssposssitions that are far lesss tolerant.”

The adults far away noticed that Tom appeared to be speaking to someone but saw no one around him. Given the strange tendencies of the boy neither woman thought anything about it. Tom had been becoming extremely odd lately, but then odd was his norm. Many of the children tried to avoid him, not because of an offensive odor about the boy, but because they were afraid of him. Several of the students had suffered mishaps over the last few weeks and, although he had not been present at any of them, they thought him guilty of causing the incidents. He was also becoming more distant, the fact that he had been playing with the others a complete surprise to the adults.

Tom looked down at his newfound companion as he shifted to one side to allow the snake passage.

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

He watched as the snake vanished into a small hole at the base of the tree and the hole reminded him that he had seen what appeared to be a cave in the hillside. That deserved exploration and since there was still a bit of time before the meal he decided to examine it further. He rose from his seat and started across the meadow towards the cave. Two of the children, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop, noticed him walking away from the group and followed him from a distance.

Amy hated Tom and was certain that it had been he that had destroyed a doll that she had been extremely fond of. She had entered the playroom one morning to find the face of the doll burned to a crisp and immediately suspected him. The pair had argued the evening before and he had said some very cruel things about the doll that she treated like a child. She had been heartbroken when Martha announced that the only thing that could be done with the toy was to dispose of it.

Dennis had his own reasons for disliking Tom and was now looking for anything that he could find to incriminate the boy in some of the strange happenings in the orphanage.

Tom realized that he was being followed by the pair and, as he walked, a plan began forming in his mind. It was time to have a little fun with the pair, fun that they would never forget. He slowed down as they got closer to the cave and he turned to act surprised that they were trailing him.

“Dennis! Amy! Look, up there on the hillside, a cave!”

Entranced by their imagination the pair hurried to catch up with Tom and they were soon standing outside the entrance to the cave.

“What do you suppose is in there?” Amy asked with trepidation.

“Probably not much, but you never know maybe there is treasure or things like that,” Tom answered. “Let’s go inside and poke around a bit.”

The boy and girl thought for a moment, but decided to follow Tom as he vanished through the entrance. The interior of the cave was a large room that had a passage that led off of it. It was to this that Tom headed when it became apparent that there was nothing interesting to be seen in the main chamber. They walked down the semi dark passage to find that it opened into another chamber that was lit from above by a hole in the ceiling. It was here that Tom stopped and turned around to face the pair that had followed him.

Amy and Dennis could see Tom, but not very well as he stood in the shadows away from the light. They started to walk towards him, but slowed their pace when he didn’t answer their calls. He had a much darker response in mind.

_‘FREEZE!’_

The children suddenly found that they were unable to move and could only watch as the boy approached them.

“You really should not have followed me. Are you still weeping about that damned doll, Amy? Did it upset you that I burned her face off? Dennis, are you still hurting from the trip you took down the stairs?”

Neither child was certain if Tom had actually spoken or if they had heard his voice in their mind. Either way, they were terrified of the boy who was even now standing in the shadows.

“None of you like me, none of you are my friends, but I do not mind. I have others that talk to me, would you like to meet them?

The children stood frozen in place and were horrified when they heard a loud hissing noise coming from the shadows. Amy tried to shriek as a large snake emerged from the darkness and then curled around her feet before beginning to climb her leg. Dennis had his own terrors as a snake dropped from the ceiling to land on his shoulder. Both children were abruptly lying on their backs as more snakes emerged from the darkness to begin to crawl over them.

It was only then that Tom emerged from the shadows and any help that the pair of helpless children thought that he might render failed to come. He stood over them as the snakes travelled back and forth over their bodies.

“Amy, Dennis, these are my friends, are they not beautiful? You really need to be very careful because they can bite dreadfully hard. Some of them are even venomous and could kill you in an instant with just one bite. Just like your doll, Amy, gone in an instant! But watch this!”

The children could only stare in terror as Tom allowed one of the snakes to crawl up his body to his face where he delivered a tender kiss to the reptile. Then he opened his mouth and the terrible hissing issued forth. The boy and girl couldn’t understand what he was saying, but the snake obviously did because it paused its movement to fix them with an icy gaze. The snakes that were crawling over them paused as well to repeat the action of the serpent coiled around Tom.

“What would you have usss do?”

The hearts of the children almost stopped as Tom appeared to have a conversation with the snakes. Both Amy and Dennis wondered if they had gone mad to believe such a thing was possible. It was then that Tom stooped to pull something out of a bag that they had not seen him have before now and Amy’s eyes widened as Tom raised the remains of the doll for her to view. The grotesque remains of its face seemed even more mangled than it had when she had last seen it.

“Is she not beautiful, Amy? She used to be your favorite plaything and now look at her. She is just as ugly as you are, but I am going to make her beautiful again. Stick your tongue out at Amy, Miss Dolly.”

Amy tried to recoil in horror as the mouth of the doll opened and then a snake crawled out of the orifice. Tom laughed out loud as he watched tears begin to spill from the eyes of the girl, but he wasn’t finished with the doll.

“I was wrong Amy, she is still ugly. Perhaps I can fix that, would you like to see me try.”

Tom stopped for a moment as he stared down at the helpless girl. Then he spoke again, this time in anger.

“You are being very rude, Amy. Do you not know that children are supposed to answer when spoken to? I suppose that since you won’t answer I shall have to punish you. I guess that I just want you to HURT!”

Young Amy Benson was abruptly doubled over in pain while Tom stood over her with fury etched on his face. Dennis Bishop was suddenly more afraid of the boy than he had ever been as Tom stared dispassionately down at his victims. A moment later, Dennis was doubling over in pain as well as Tom’s attention turned to him.

“You feel sorry for her, do you not? Well, you should feel sorry for yourself.”

He held up the doll that he held and the pair of children stared in amazement and horror as the doll burst into flames while the boy watched their reactions. Tom threw the doll down onto the floor of the cave and watched it as it burned into ruins. Deciding that the children hadn’t had enough he turned back to the bag and reached into it to withdraw a struggling rabbit. The eyes of the children widened as the hissing noise repeated itself and he held the rabbit down closer to the floor as a large serpent separated from the mass that was crawling over the children.

Amy and Dennis, free of the pain that had been consuming them, watched in horror as the snake watched the rabbit with its dark eyes. Tom looked down from his height as the children whimpered in fear as the snake approached the wriggling animal. It was then that Tom spoke to the animal in a form that the children could understand.

“KILL!”

The snake lunged forward and struck the rabbit with its fangs, the animal squealing in pain as the reptile struck again. Amy and Dennis watched the attack as their minds threatened to shut down to block out the sight that they were being forced to witness. Tom smiled as the children watched the rabbit suffer.

“You really do not want to watch this, do you? Well, that is too bad because you are going to watch every moment of this miserable animal’s final moments. Maybe once the snake is finished with it he will decide to kill both of you. Maybe I will TELL him to kill you!”

The rabbit stopped struggling as it became too weak to continue the fight and dangled helplessly from the grasp of the boy. Amy and Dennis watched as the animal died and then was flung onto the ground. Tom aimed a kick at the carcass and the children flinched as the bloodied remains of the rabbit landed next to them. It was then that Tom stepped towards his victims and looked down at them.

“You are not going to tell anyone about any of this because if you do the death that he suffered will be pleasant compared to what will happen to you.”

The snakes still crawling over the children began to leave their bodies as Tom looked at them and then uttered a command.

“GO BACK TO YOUR HOMES!”

Tom looked down at the boy and girl before speaking once again.

“LEAVE THIS PLACE AND RETURN TO THE PICNIC, SAY NOTHING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED HERE BUT NEVER FORGET IT!”

Amy and Dennis were suddenly able to move again and hurried to rise to their feet before scampering out of the cavern that had seen such horror. Tom watched as they left and laughed to himself once he was alone. He glanced at the bloody rabbit and the remains of the doll before they were suddenly whisked away to the dark recesses of the cave. Neither would ever be found, of that he was sure, and sooner or later the rabbit would be consumed by something. He walked out of the chamber to make his way back to the picnic and the food that awaited consumption.

When he arrived at the scene of the picnic he found Mrs. Cole and Martha trying to console Amy and Dennis. Neither child would talk, but were crying piteously. Fear consumed his mind as the pair turned to see him and the weeping intensified in volume and strength. Mrs. Cole left the pair of distraught children to approach him and he began to think of an explanation.

“Tom, do you know what happened to Amy and Dennis? They came back to the picnic at a dead run wailing like banshees.”

“Mrs. Cole, we went up the hill and found a cave there,” the boy responded as he began to leak false tears from his eyes, “we went inside to look around and then they started screaming after they went down a tunnel. I followed them and they had found what was left of a rabbit, it was so horrible that they just turned and ran away. I must have frightened them when they came upon me in the dark because they ran away from me and out of the cave. I could not keep up with them and now here we are.”

The woman wrapped her arms around the boy and hugged him tightly, unaware that he was glaring past her at the boy and girl who had so recently accompanied him to the cave. Amy and Dennis, already terrified, began to cry even harder and Martha was hard put to calm them. Even so, both of the children heard a horrible command within their minds and it was this that threatened their sanity.

_‘NEVER SPEAK OF THIS OR YOU WILL SUFFER!’_

The remainder of the day at the picnic was silent as the children ate their lunches and the adults tended to them. When the day ended the group would pile into the carriages that had brought them for their outing. There was very little conversation on the return trip and even less talk from Amy and Dennis. When they arrived back at the orphanage the nearly silent pair climbed out of the carriage and then hurried up their rooms. Neither of them said a word as they brushed past the adults to vanish behind closed doors.

Tom, for his part, was full of chatter about all of the fun that he had experienced at the picnic and said that he was going to have a hard time sleeping that night. It had been so much fun, he informed them, that he wanted to do it all again.

When he retired that night he dropped onto his bed with contentment. He had gotten away with all of it and made a huge discovery. The boy had known that the pair was watching him and the doll had been easy to retrieve from the dustbin. The rabbit had been a little harder to obtain, but he had managed to do it. Somehow he had known that all of this was going to happen and it pleased him.

_‘What else can I do that no one else can?’_

That thought echoed in his mind over and over again as it was intermingled with visions of a castle that stood over a lake. Perhaps one day he was going to live in that castle and be treated like a king. Either way he intended to have his way and there was little that anyone could do about it.

While the boy thought his dreams of glory and power the adults downstairs were discussing the happenings of the day and the incident at the picnic.

“Mrs. Cole, do you really believe everything that Tom told you? I mean, he has not always been the most honest when we have to speak to him. Do you suppose that he could have done something to the two of them?”

“But what could he have done? Neither of them had a mark on them and we would have noticed if they had.”

“Could he have threatened them not to tell?”

“I suppose that he could have, but what could he have done to put them in such a state? They trembled all the way home from the meadow and said barely a word the rest of the evening. They did not even argue when it was time for their baths and he always argues. Instead, he got into the tub and sat their without argument, even when I washed behind his ears.”

“I suppose that we could have Doctor Barlow look them over.”

“That might be the best thing, and maybe have the doctor talk to Tom as well.”

“Why would he have to speak to Tom?”

“Because I have the feeling that Tom is hiding something deep down inside him. Perhaps the doctor can get to it and help the boy.”

“I will fetch the doctor in the morning to look at the three of them.”

The last of the dishes put away, the women retired to their beds unaware of the gravity of the situation. They were also unaware when Tom’s door opened and the boy stepped out into the corridor to begin his nightly prowl of the building. He walked through the silent halls and stopped outside the door of Dennis Bishop where he placed his hand against the door to push it open.

Dennis awakened as Tom knelt beside the bed and then placed his hand on the forehead of his victim and the eyes of the boy in the bed widened in fear as he realized who was in the room with him.

“Dennis, if you ever speak of what happened today I shall come and kill you. I do not care how old you are or how long it takes, I will kill you. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded furiously before Tom issued a command.

“SLEEP!”

The job done with Dennis, Tom moved on to Amy and repeated his threats to the terrified girl. When he was finished with her, he left the sleeping girl and returned to his room where he got back into bed and slept a wonderfully resting sleep.

Tomorrow was another day, and he had so much more to do.


	5. Answers to Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The "accidents" that have befallen the residents of the orphanage bring a visitor to find answers.

In the weeks since their return from their ordeal at the outing neither Amy nor Dennis had spoken of the incident in the cave. In fact, the pair would burst into inconsolable tears and refuse to talk at all for hours if questioned about it. Only Tom was able to shed information about what had occurred that day and he swore that what he was saying was the truth. Although Mrs. Cole and Martha had suspicions about the story that he told they had no way to disprove it and were forced to accept it.

More worrisome, however, was the series of small accidents that had befallen all of the orphans except Tom. He had managed to avoid injury while the other children had become rather accident prone and Doctor Barlow had been kept busy. It was apparent that that the boy had not caused the accidents because he was always visible and nowhere near the scene of the mishaps.

In one incident Eric had tumbled down the stairs into the cellar. He had been instructed to report there to help Martha bring up some containers of food that were stored there. There had been nothing amiss until his fourth trip down the stairs when he suddenly lost his footing and rolled down them to the floor below. Tom had been in the cellar with Martha when the accident occurred and had looked mystified as the other boy fell. The incident had left Eric with a broken arm as well as cuts and contusions.

Amy Benson had been injured when the window that he had opened slammed closed on her hand, pinning it there until the adults had managed to free it. Tom was in the next room and had passed the scene as he walked to the dining room table. Amy said nothing about Tom and once again it was obvious that the boy was innocent.

The frequency and number of the injuries did not go unnoticed by the ministry that funded the orphanage and one day Mrs. Cole opened the front door to find a representative of that organization on the other side.

“Mister Wells, how good to see you. Won’t you come in?”

“I am afraid that this is not a social visit, Mrs. Cole. The ministry is rather puzzled and concerned about the number of injuries that the children under your care and supervision are sustaining.”

Mrs. Cole watched as the man brushed past her and followed him dutifully into her office. She closed the door behind them and then sat down behind her desk, wondering if it would be hers much longer.

“I am puzzled as well; Mister Wells, but I assure you that the children are receiving the best care possible.”

“You have to understand our position, Mrs. Cole. In the past few weeks Doctor Barlow has visited this building and cared for several children injured in incidents. The board is rather concerned that some of these accidents may not be such and I have been sent to investigate.”

“Mister Wells, forgive me if I am incorrect, but are you suggesting wrong doing on my part or by my assistant?”

“Not at all, Mrs. Cole, I would not even suggest such a thing, but you must admit that that number of accidents in a very short time bears looking into.”

“My staff and I shall, of course, assist you in your investigation.”

“Very good, Mrs. Cole, I would expect nothing less. Now I should very much like to speak with each child individually.”

“Of course, where would you like to meet with them?”

“This office will do quite nicely.”

“I will send the first child in,” the matron answered as she rose from behind the desk. She hurried out of the office and moments later ushered Amy into the room.

“Amy, this is Mister Wells. He is here to ask you questions about your accident. I want you to tell him anything that he wants to know and I want you to tell him the truth.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The small girl watched as the matron stepped out of the office and then turned to face the questions that would be asked of her. Mrs. Cole returned to the kitchen where Martha was busy preparing the midday meal.

“The ministry has sent Edward Wells to investigate the accidents.”

Martha stopped in mid-motion as the news registered with her. She turned to look at the matron with concern on her face.

“Surely they do not believe that  _we_ had something to do with what has been happening.”

“Right now, Martha, I cannot begin to imagine what they believe. But I certainly hope that they can determine what is going on for the sake and safety of the children.”

Movement at the door attracted their attention and they turned to see Tom standing in the doorway.

“Yes, Tom, did you need something?”

“No, Mrs. Cole, I just wondered who that strange man was that is in your office with Amy?”

Mrs. Cole put the pitcher that she was preparing to fill back down onto the counter and approached the boy. She bent to look into his eyes before speaking to him.

“I had intended to tell you later, but now will do just as well. The gentleman in my office is Mister Edward Wells and he represents the organization that provides funds for the orphanage. He is here to investigate the accidents that have been occurring and wants to talk to all of us one at a time.”

“I don’t know anything about the accidents! Why should he wish to talk to me?”

“He just needs to talk to everyone here so that they can determine what has been happening. No one is blaming you for anything so please do not be frightened.”

While Mrs. Cole talked to Tom Mr. Wells was having a difficult time with Amy. The child had broken down into tears when questioned about her accident and refused to talk about it.

“Amy, dear, I just wish to know what you can tell me about the day that you got hurt. Please calm down and tell me anything that you can.”

Amy continued to cry and then buried her face in her hands as Mr. Wells sat across the desk from her and wondered how to proceed. It was obvious that the child was afraid of something and he wondered what it was.

‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘I might get more information from one of the other children.’

He finally rose and allowed the weeping girl to depart before calling for another child. Eric Whalley cautiously entered the office and was soon occupying the seat that Amy had departed.

“What is your name, lad?”

“I’m Eric, sir. Eric Whalley.”

“Eric, my name is Mr. Wells and I am here to look into the accidents that have been occurring here at the orphanage.”

“Am I in trouble, sir?”

“Not at all, Eric. It is just that the organization that I work for is very concerned about the injuries that have occurred. I understand that you were injured in a fall recently.”

“Yes, sir, I fell down the stairs to the cellar.”

“And why were you going down into the cellar?”

“I was helping Martha and Tom bring food up to the kitchen.”

“What happened that caused you to fall?”

“I don’t know, sir. I was walking back down to get another sack and I tripped.”

“Could someone have caused you to fall?”

“No, sir, there was no one around me when I fell.”

“You mentioned Martha and Tom, where were they when you fell?”

“They were both in the cellar. Tom was getting ready to go up the stairs when I fell and Martha was pulling things off of the shelves to bring them up.”

“Did they see you fall?”

“I don’t see how they could have not seen it.”

“Eric, do you know anything about what happened to Amy?”

“Only a little bit.”

“What can you tell me?”

“She was trying to open the window and it closed on her hand. Mrs. Cole and Martha were downstairs when it happened and she started screaming. They both ran up to help her.”

“Were any of the other children around?”

“Tom was upstairs, but he was in his room and the rest of us were downstairs.”

“Could Tom have done anything to Amy?” Mr. Wells asked as he wrote a notation on the pad before him.

“Maybe, but I doubt it. Amy doesn’t like Tom and would have told him to get out of her room. Boys are not supposed to be in girl’s rooms anyhow, you can get the switch for that.”

Eric watched as Mr. Wells wrote even more down on the paper that rested on the desk before him. The boy fidgeted on the chair as glanced at the jar of lemon drops that rested within easy reach but made no attempt to take any.

“Eric, can you think of anything more that I should know?”

“Mister Wells,” the boy began as he lowered his voice to a near whisper as if afraid that he would be overheard.

“Yes, Eric.”

“Everybody is afraid of Tom.”

“Why is that Eric, why is everyone afraid of Tom? Has he done anything to hurt people?”

“No, sir, but he is really very odd and when he looks at you it is almost as if he is looking  _through_ you.”

“And this makes everyone afraid of him?”

“Yes, sometimes queer things happen when he is around.”

“What kind of queer things?”

“Dennis told me that Tom did very strange things while they were in the cave during the outing.”

“What strange things did he do?”

“Dennis would not tell me, it was almost as if he could not.”

“Is Dennis still here at the orphanage?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you Eric for your help. Now I have some other questions.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have Mrs. Cole or Martha ever harmed you or any of the other orphans?”

“Mrs. Cole uses her switch sometimes when someone is naughty.”

“What about other times besides when you are naughty?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well, Eric, thank you again. Could you have Dennis come in next?”

Edward Wells watched as the boy rose and then walked out of the room. Moments later a smaller boy entered the room and pushed the door closed behind him. A moment later, the boy was settled into the chair facing the adult.

If Mr. Wells had hoped for answers from the boy he was terribly disappointed. Dennis repeated Amy’s testimony with a torrent of tears and sobbing. These intensified when Tom’s name was mentioned. Finally, the questioning going nowhere Dennis was released from the room and he wasted no time in vanishing.

Billy Stubbs was the next to be seated in the room and before long Mr. Wells began to believe that he could not count on the answers that the boy was giving. All of them centered on the hatred that Billy had for Tom and nothing that was said to him could sway his answer to what was asked of him. Finally the boy was dismissed from the room and Edward Wells sat back in the chair to think about what he had heard.

As the afternoon continued he heard from the brother and sister as well as from Martha. None of what he heard helped his investigation and he was finally ready to talk to Tom. Shortly after he summoned the boy the child was seated in the chair across the desk from him.

Immediately he realized that what Eric had said was true. The boy  _did_ seem to look through a person while he looked at them and a definite chill went through the man as he faced Tom. The man and boy looked at each other for a long moment before Mr. Wells finally spoke.

“Tom, I am Mr. Wells and I represent the organization that provides for this orphanage.”

“Why am I here?”

“Tom, I am here to investigate the accidents that have been occurring here at the orphanage and the injuries that have resulted from them.”

“Why are you asking  _me_ about them? I do not know anything that could help you.”

“Well, Tom, your name has come up several times today and I am eager to learn what you might know about what is going on.”

“I told you, I do not know anything about the accidents.”

“What about the day of the outing? I am most interested in hearing about what happened in the cave.”

Tom’s face flushed red and his dark eyes narrowed as he leaned forward to face the man sitting in the chair behind the desk.

“I told that old loon, Mrs. Cole, what happened that day and I do not feel like repeating myself.”

“Well, I have not heard what happened in the cave and would be most interested to. I am especially interested in what happened that was so traumatic that neither Amy nor Dennis will speak of it.”

“Damn it all to Hell, if you must know, they went onto the cave, found a dead rabbit and when they turned to leave ran into me in the dark! That is all! End of story! Thank you!”

“I am sorry if I upset you, Tom. Please understand that I am not accusing you of anything. I just need answers to this mystery.”

“Answers, you want answers, well here they are. This building is an ancient rat-trap and the windows are faulty, one of them fell and landed on Amy’s hand. Eric fell down the stairs because he is a clumsy lout! Herbert fell on the ice and then tripped over his own feet in the lavatory. You are wasting your time, Mr. Wells; I cannot tell you what I do not know!”

Mr. Wells was stunned by the response that the boy had given him and was even more surprised when Tom rose to walk to the door.

“Tom, I need you to be seated. I have not finished with my questions.”

Tom stopped and then turned back to Mr. Wells.

“You  _are_ finished with your questions!”

Mr. Wells stopped short as Tom shouted his response and then was prepared to speak again when he heard a voice that he knew hadn’t been spoken aloud and yet didn’t seem like was in his head.

_'LEAVE ME ALONE!'_

Tom walked out of the room and left the door he had opened hanging ajar. Mr. Wells sat behind the desk for a moment until his eyes managed to focus and then he rose from the chair.

Mrs. Cole had seen Tom leave the room after hearing him shouting at their visitor. She hurried into the office to find the man preparing to slide his paperwork back into his bag.

“Mister Wells, did everything go well?”

“Yes, Mrs. Cole, it went quite well and I believe that I have enough to make my report to my superiors. You have nothing to worry about as I see no evidence of wrongdoing on your part or that of your assistant.”

“I heard Tom shouting at you, would you like me to speak to him about it?”

“That is hardly necessary, Mrs. Cole. The boy was merely agitated by my questions.”

The pair of adults walked towards the front door of the building unaware that Tom stood at the stop of the stairs listening to their conversation.

“You shall have the results of my report within the week. But, as I said before, I see no evidence of fault on your part and my report shall reflect that.”

Tom listened as the door opened and the man left after bidding his farewells. He hurried to the window in his room to watch Mr. Wells get into his automobile and then start it. A moment later the boy watched as the vehicle began to slowly drive away.

The questions that the man had asked angered him and he thought about them as he watched the vehicle move down the narrow street. Thoughts began to fill his mind as the anger grew within him and he visualized the car careening out of control.

Edward Wells was driving down the street when his car suddenly picked up speed as the motor began to race out of control. Instinctively his foot pressed down onto the brake, but there was no response from the accelerating car. He reached for the shift knob and as he touched it his hand recoiled from the suddenly superheated metal. Pain arched through his hand as the metal seared the flesh of its palm.

All of these things removed his attention from the task at hand and his vehicle became a deadly missile as it flew down the street. Wells realized that he was in terrible trouble as he frantically attempted to regain control of the car as it continued to accelerate. He attempted to shut down the racing motor and found that it was also out of his control.

A moment later his car sideswiped a large truck that was attempting to avoid the collision. He frantically swung the wheel in an effort to avoid more impacts as the vehicle continued to gain speed. A moment later a slow moving wagon pulled out of an alley and directly into the path of his car. He tromped down hard onto the breaks and found that the brakes also failed to respond to his commands. Edward wells had no choice but to prepare for the impact that was coming.

The speeding automobile slammed into the side of the wagon just as its driver jumped clear. In the instant of consciousness that he had left to him before he was thrown through the windshield Edward Wells heard laughter in a voice that he recognized but could not place. He landed in a heap beyond the shattered wagon and was soon surrounded by a gathering crowd. The man would survive, but would never return to employment, he would spend the rest of his life as an invalid.

While the constables worked at clearing the wreckage from the crowded street Tom sat in the classroom working on his grammar lesson. Mrs. Cole saw the smile flit across his face and wondered what the boy found humorous but, because it didn’t cause a distraction, she put it out of her mind. There were things other than a boy smiling during class to worry about. In the distance she could hear the wail of the sirens as they rushed to the site of the accident and she mildly wondered what mishap had occurred. The thought that Mr. Wells had come to grief never crossed her mind and she was irritated when the children under her charge turned to look out the window when they too heard the sirens.

“All of you need to get back onto task. I shall have no daydreaming in my classroom and certainly no gazing out through the windows.”

The heads of the children immediately snapped back around and some cringed when they noticed the switch that she held in her hand. None of them had any doubt that the matron would use the switch and they certainly didn’t want to experience it. The threat had the desired effect and soon the children were all back to work, much to the satisfaction of the woman at the head of the room.

Martha was working in the kitchen and also heard the sirens, but thought nothing of it. What connection could it have with the orphanage? She regarded the soup that was simmering on the stove and then began to pull the bowls off of the shelf in preparation for setting the table. Dinner would be soon and Martha was grateful to finally be caught up. The visit with Mr. Wells had put her behind and it had been incredibly hard to make up for the time lost. She stepped out into the dining room and began to set the table while also keeping an eye on the kitchen, the last thing that she needed after the visit was a fire or some other accident.

She was nearly finished with the table when the door to the classroom opened and the children began to file towards the lavatories to clean up for the meal. As she watched the group of freshly scrubbed faces begin to emerge from the lavatories she became aware of an insistent knocking at the front door and left her position to answer it. The young woman was surprised to find a constable standing at the door waiting for an answer.

“Can I help you, officer?”

“May I speak to Mrs. Cole?”

“Please come in and I will tell her that you are here, officer.”

The young constable watched as Martha hurried to find Mrs. Cole and soon saw the woman walking towards him. The worry on her face was obvious and she was soon ushering him into the now empty classroom.

“Can I help you, officer?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I am here because there has been a terrible accident a short distance from here.”

“What has that to do with the orphanage?”

“The accident involved a Mr. Edward Wells.”

“Good heavens, he was just here not an hour ago. What happened to him?”

“It was an automobile accident; he collided with a brewery wagon and was thrown from his vehicle. I am afraid that the situation looks grim for the gentleman as he went through the windscreen of the vehicle and struck a building.”

“Will he survive?”

“I do not have the answer for that question, Ma’am. Can you tell me why he was here?”

“He was asking questions about the operation of the orphanage. The organization that funds us sends a representative occasionally to do that. We have had a few accidents lately and they wanted to make certain that everything was proper here.”

“I see. Did he seem upset when he left the orphanage?”

“No, actually he was in quite good spirits. How did you connect him with the orphanage?”

“We found his case in the car and the paperwork led me here.”

“I see.”

“Can you tell me anything that might assist our investigation?”

“No, officer, I cannot.”

“Very well, Ma’am, if you think of anything please notify us.”

“I will do so.”

They exited the classroom aware that the children were watching curiously from the table at which they sat. All of the heads turned in their direction quickly turned back to their meals when Martha spoke sharply and they all wondered what could have brought a constable to the building.

Well, all but one wondered.


	6. Visions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom has visions that might be clues to his past and discovers more things that he can do.

Once again the orphanage had settled back down into its mundane normality and the children when through their days of classes interrupted only by brief periods of glee. The accident which had nearly claimed Mr. Wells had shocked all of them, but at least the investigation into the orphanage had come to a close. The notes that the man had taken had been sent on to the ministry that paid the bills of the orphanage and after review it had been decided that the accidents had indeed been such.

Tom sat in his room as he mournfully considered the now empty box in his cupboard. He had carefully husbanded the stolen candy, but they were all gone now and there was little chance that more would replace them. He had been to the newly reopened shop with Martha and had been dismayed to find the candy jars now resided on a shelf behind the counter, far out of reach. Instead of filling his pockets with sweets he had to content himself with the one piece of candy that Martha had purchased for him. He had thought for a moment about repeating the incident with the shelves, but knew that this might draw suspicion and he couldn’t afford that.

True, the former shopkeeper had come to the orphanage to confront him about the missing candy, but he had been an old man and the apparent heart attack had not been questioned. The new shopkeeper was a young man and his demise would be harder to explain. There was always the possibility of making the man forget, like he had done with the constable, but that didn’t always work.

In fact, Tom wasn’t sure  _how_ it worked at all. None of what he could do made any sense and he made certain that he said nothing about it in front of the adults or even the children at the orphanage. They would think at worst that he was mad, or more probably that he was a liar. Even so, behind the closed door of his room, the boy practiced his capabilities on the inanimate objects that filled the chamber.

He had also found that he hadn’t been imagining the conversation that he had carried on with the snake. The creatures seemed to seek him out and he found that they would do his bidding if he asked them to. Amy had been nearly petrified with fear one afternoon when a snake had appeared in front of her in the courtyard and visions of the cave filled the little girl’s mind. Her shrill screams had brought Martha and Mrs. Cole running and they had arrived to find the child shrieking mindlessly. Neither of the women had seen the snake, which had disappeared through a hole in the fence, and assumed that the child was merely seeking attention. No one realized that Tom was watching the whole thing with amusement or that he had caused it, the boy had stayed safely away from the scene yet highly visible.

The pair of women had led the nearly hysterical child back into the building while the remainder of the orphanage continued to play outside. Tom smiled to himself as he played with the truck that was among the few usable toys belonging to the institution. It had magically appeared outside the fence one day and, against their better judgement, Martha and Mrs. Cole had allowed the children to keep it when no owner came to claim it. Tom knew the truth however, a pair of boys had been playing with the toy and he had made them not only forget it but run in terror from an imagined snake. He was certain that their parents probably weren’t happy about the loss of the toy, but neither would be able to explain its whereabouts.

He looked up with mild annoyance when Martha reappeared at the doorway to call them in for class. The boy knew better than to disobey the woman and gathered the truck in preparation to go inside. He was walking away from his play area when a rude voice entered his consciousness.

“Phew, don’t you ever take a bath, boy!”

He turned to see two larger boys standing at the fence looking through at him. They were both grinning broadly as they continued to hurl insults at him.

“He asked you a question, or are you deaf as well as filthy?”

Tom stopped and stepped towards the fence as the first boy added to the conflict.

“Where did you get that nice toy?” The red-headed boy said as he pushed further at the smaller child. “You must have stolen it, because there is no way that this place is going to buy new toys for filthy orphans.”

“Don’t call me filthy!”

“What are you going to do about it, you filthy bastard.”

Neither boy actually heard the voice that resonated within their head, but they certainly felt the after effects.

_“I THINK THAT YOU BOTH NEED TO HURT!”_

Nearly instantly both boys were writhing on the ground as they screamed in pain. Each was clutching their midsections as squeal after squeal of agony peeled forth while Tom watched from his side of the fence. Martha rushed from the building in answer to the screams to find Tom viewing the scene before him dispassionately. She turned Tom around and sent him into the building before rushing out of the courtyard to tend to the stricken children. As she reached them the boys were abruptly freed of their pain and swiftly rising to their feet to race from the scene. She watched as they vanished from sight and then turned to walk back into the building.

She glanced into the classroom as she walked past and saw Tom seated at his place while Mrs. Cole wrote arithmetic problems on the board for the students to copy and solve. The woman wondered what had happened to the children who had been writhing on the ground while Tom watched, but obviously the boy hadn’t done anything because he was standing away from the fence. She shook her head in puzzlement before continuing on to the kitchen and the work that waited for her.

Tom had seen Martha peering at him and then move on, he smiled briefly as the woman left the doorway. He had gotten away with it once again and couldn’t be happier with the situation. The boys that he had dealt with would leave him alone now, though they probably wondered how he had managed to do what he had. If fact, the boys would wonder exactly  _what_ had happened because he had not approached them in any way.

The young boys who had been arguing with Tom had stopped running several streets away. Both were terribly frightened about what had happened and were now afraid to go anywhere near the building. They wondered if the boy that they had argued with had done something to them but didn’t see how he could have. He hadn’t been close enough to touch them and he hadn’t thrown anything at them. It was all very strange and they decided not to push the issue. They had other things to worry about when they considered the fact that they were absent from school and the headmaster would be angry with them. They hurried on their way to sneak back into the school building that they had neglected to go to in the first place.

Tom sat through the arithmetic class and was grateful when Mrs. Cole told them that they were dismissed. The grammar lesson that had preceded it had driven all of the children nearly out of their minds and the fact that the matron had promised an exam in the near future hadn’t helped matters any. The boy rose and walked up to his room where he quietly closed the door to his room and opened the door to his cupboard. He looked at the nail that held the board in place and gave it a simple command.

“ _OUT!_ ”

An instant later the nail was out of its space and he was able to retrieve the box that was hidden behind it. He opened the box once he was sitting on his bed and looked at the items that it held. A small toy soldier, the newest addition to his collection, lay in the container. It stood at rigid attention as it lay on its back facing up at him. The boy who had come to the orphanage with his sister had brought it with him and Tom had been more than happy to attain it after several failed attempts. The owner of the toy soldier belonged to knew that the toy was missing and had complained loudly to Mrs. Cole. The matron, angered by yet another theft had once again searched the rooms of the children, but the toy had remained in Tom’s possession secure behind the wall in the cupboard.

He suddenly hurried to close the lid and rush the box back to its hiding spot when he heard the tread of an adult coming up the stairs. The board was pushed back into the space that it belonged to and he gave the nail a swift command.

_“IN!”_

The nail sank into its home just as two sharp raps sounded on the door and then it opened to reveal Mrs. Cole.

“Tom, Martha told me that something happened outside the fence. She said that two boys were lying on the ground as if they were injured. Do you know what happened?”

“Oh, those two! They had been fighting and knocked each other down. I guess maybe that they hurt themselves when they fell.”

“Very well, I was just a little concerned about the whole thing. Wouldn’t you like to come downstairs with the rest of the children? We’re going to listen to the radio program tonight; it’s supposed to be very funny.”

“I might, I really do not know.”

“I wish that you would, Tom. You spend entirely too much time up here alone. It would do you good to be with the other children.”

“I will think about it.”

“Well, dinner will be soon. Martha will call when it is time to clean up.”

Tom watched as the woman left the room and closed the door behind her. He frowned as he thought about what she had said.

_‘I have no damn interest in being with the other children. They are so different from me and they bore me immensely, unless they are lying on the ground screaming after I make them hurt.’_

He glanced at the door once again and then at the door of the cupboard, the idea of looking at his prisoner tempted him but he knew that Mrs. Cole hadn’t gone downstairs yet.

_‘It would be just my luck that the old loon would walk in while I had it out and I cannot chance that. The last thing that I need is for her to find out that I’m the one that has been snitching things around here.’_

Tom flopped back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling as he thought about the day before when a relative of Amy’s had come to visit. He had felt incredible envy and also a lot of anger when he had seen the girl get hugs from the adults. A hug from someone who loved him was something that he had never experienced. In fact, Tom wasn’t sure what love felt like, it was an alien thing to him that he was not sure that he could reciprocate, not because he didn’t want to but because he didn’t know how to. He didn’t even know if his mother had said that she loved him before she died. He knew so little about his yesterdays, his todays were bland and without joy and his tomorrows were unclear.

Tom felt a tear run down his cheek as he considered what he had seen the day before and how it must feel. What exactly was one to do if offered a hug? Was it appropriate to offer a hug first? Who was it appropriate to offer a hug to? What did one do if the hug was refused by the other person?

The more that he thought about it, the more upset that he got. _‘Damn them all to hell,'_ he thought, _‘not one of them cares about me or they would have come to see me! Someday, when I’m grown up I’m going to find my family, the family that does not care about me or even that I exist, and I’m going to make them all hurt! Maybe I will make them all DIE!’_

Tom lay there for a moment before closing his eyes and drifting off into a rather disturbed sleep. In his mind he could see images of people writhing on the ground in agony, but they were people that he had never met. One man looked quite a bit like him and Tom would wonder if he hadn’t seen an image of his father. How he had seen this face Tom didn’t know and couldn’t figure out.

Another image that he saw was the same man collapsing amid a green glow and a voice screaming words that sounded like nonsense. He had seen people scattering in terror, but he didn’t see himself as whoever was creating the carnage pursued the people and then they too collapsed amid the same eerie green light after the same word were yelled by a male voice that sounded familiar. Regardless of who they were each person would be surrounded by the baleful glow before they fell to the ground and lay there motionless.

Finally, the person in the image, left behind a large house filled with bodies that he assumed were lifeless. Whoever it had been paused long enough to look down into the face of the man that resembled him. The eyes were open wide and the mouth hung slack as a foot nudged the man in the ribs, an action which brought no response from the victim.

There was also the image of a snake which Tom could not shake from his mind, a snake that was crawling from the mouth of a skull, much like the snake which had emerged from the mouth of Amy's doll. The visage appeared over the house and was visible within the cloudless sky. As the person walked down the path from the house and then along a country road filled with terrified people looking towards the sky and the horror that it held. Tom was nearly petrified with fear when he began to shake uncontrollably and awoke to find Martha shaking him in an attempt to wake him.

“Tom! Are you alright?”

“I was just having a bad dream, that’s all.”

“Well, I should say that you did have a bad dream. You frightened us all out of our wits when you screamed.”

“I screamed?”

“Yes, you screamed,” she replied as she held the boy in her arms. “You said something that none of us could understand and when I walked into the room the look on your face was horrifying. I thought that you were having a fit and was ready to send for Doctor Barlow.”

Martha released the boy as he sat up and then looked into her eyes with his own blue ones.

 _‘Did she just hug me,’_ he wondered, _‘is that what it feels like?’_

He thought for a moment as the woman rose from beside him and then looked at him once again.

“Dinner will be ready soon and you really need to come downstairs to clean up for it.”

Tom nodded briskly and rose from the bed to follow Martha back down to the lower floor where he hurried into the boy’s lavatory. He didn’t notice Billy watching him as he entered the room and wasn’t prepared for the fist that struck him hard in the side of the head. The blow sent him sprawling and he was unable to rise to his feet before the larger boy seized him and dragged him to his feet before striking him again. This blow hit him in the belly and he doubled over as Billy prepared to hit him again. He had time only for one response and it was a response that Billy would not understand.

Billy was prepared for Tom to begin wailing in pain, he wasn’t prepared for Tom to fix him with an evil glare. Tom visualized Billy flying across the room and slamming against the wall, which was exactly what happened just as Mrs. Cole entered to investigate the noises emanating from the room. She was amazed when she saw the boy flung away from Tom and was even more amazed when she realized that she hadn’t seen Tom do anything to cause it.

Tom turned towards this new presence in the room and thought about the ramifications of what the woman had seen. He had no choice but to do what he did next.

_‘FORGET WHAT YOU SAW!’_

As Mrs. Cole’s eyes swam out of focus and then struggled to return to their previous state Tom hurried out of the lavatory and to the Dining Room where he swiftly took the place he normally occupied. In the lavatory, Mrs. Cole had regained her focus and was kneeling next to the unconscious Billy just as Herbert entered the room. The woman turned to the portly boy and gave him a swift directive.

“Herbert, run and fetch Doctor Barlow! I need him here immediately, Billy has hurt himself.”

The rotund boy hurried out of the room and down the corridor before opening the door and rushing out into the courtyard. The door closed behind him and the rest of the orphans wondered what had happened to get him to move as swiftly as he had, especially when it was away from the dinner table.

Martha hurried into the lavatory to help her matron lift the boy to a sitting position as he began to regain his senses. He moaned with pain as he shifted and it was then that they realized that his arm was badly twisted, in a manner which normally wasn’t pain-free. It was obvious that the limb was shattered as it began to swell and become discolored. The remainder of the orphans gathered around the door to the room as they watched the women ministering to the stricken child. Only Tom remained at the table as though waiting for his dinner to be served. He had no interest in Billy’s wellbeing and the only thing that worried him was the bruise that he was sure would come from the attack that he had sustained.

Minutes later, the door opened and Herbert, panting from the effort, hurried in with Doctor Barlow in tow. The children scattered away from the door as the man pushed his way through before kneeling next to Billy. Martha, shooed the children back to the table and soon they were busy eating the dinner that she had prepared. It was then that she noticed the bruise on the side of Tom’s head.

“Tom, what in heaven’s name happened to your face?”

“Why, is something wrong?”

“You have a terrible bruise on your face. Did one of the other children hit you?”

“No, Martha, maybe I bumped it when I was dreaming earlier.”

“Yes, I supposed that you could have.”

The woman turned away from the boy to return to the lavatory not thinking that if the bruise had occurred the way the boy had suggested, it would have been on the other side of his head. The children ate quietly as the women and doctor removed Billy from the lavatory to take him to Mrs. Cole’s office. Tom could hear Martha preparing bath water and knew that soon she would call the girls for their baths. The boys would have a short time before they too were called to bathe, this meant that they had time for some play.

Doctor Barlow examined the damaged limb for a few moments before announcing that it was indeed broken and would need to be set. He would need to take Billy to his home in order for his nurse to be present to assist him in the procedure. Mrs. Cole assisted the doctor in helping the boy out to the waiting carriage before returning to the building. It was strange, she thought, but something was playing around the edges of her mind. Something that she had seen, or thought that she had seen, but couldn’t remember kept trying to force its way to the surface.

She walked past the door to the girl’s lavatory and could hear the giggles of the small girls as they were bathed. The woman stepped into the boy’s lavatory to begin preparing the bath water for the boys and, as she did, she thought once again about what had happened here only a short time before. Steam rose from the warm water and it was not long before she was calling upon the first boy to come in to bathe. The boys would bathe in privacy, but knew that they had best do a good job unless they wanted supervision. The inspection after baths was intense, unforgiving and sure to lead back to the bathtub if the product didn’t meet the satisfaction of the matron.

Tom was the first called and he was soon settling into the warm water with pleasure. This was one of his favorite times and he began to scrub himself with gusto. Rarely did Mrs. Cole or Martha find anything amiss with his attempts at bathing. He was drying off when Dennis entered the room to take his own bath. Normally, Tom bristled when the boy was near him, but this was a time when Tom felt that all was well in the world and he hurried to dress. He left the other boy to his bath and then walked out to be inspected.

He stood placidly as Martha inspected his hair, behind his ears and other commonly neglected areas. Finally she gave him a playful swat on the backside before telling him to get a cookie out of the jar that stood on the table. Tom sat down to enjoy his treat and paid no attention to the fact that Amy scooted away from him as he sat down next to her. Martha  _had_ noticed the reaction but, since Tom had done nothing to illicit the girl’s movement, thought nothing about it other than the normal girls hating boys at this age.

While boy after boy emerged and was inspected, Doctor Barlow was busy tending to the wound that Billy had sustained. The arm was badly broken and the old doctor wondered how the child had managed to injure the limb as badly as he had. It was almost as if the child had been thrown against something solid with incredible force, nothing else could produce such a wound. But he had seen no sign of any possible cause in the room that the boy had been in. What in God’s name had happened in that room?

The children, now bathed, inspected and treated, were ushered into the lavatories to brush their teeth. Tom looked into mirror at his reflection as he brushed his teeth and wasn’t shocked at the resemblance that he bore to the man that he had seen in his dreams. There was no doubt in his mind that he had seen his father, but how? He had never met the man and, if he had, he didn’t remember him. He also wondered about the house that he had seen and more importantly the vision of the skull and snake in the sky above the scene.

As he finished brushing his teeth he turned away from the mirror with something burning in his mind.

_‘I’m going to find that man and that house and I am going to find out what the skull and snake mean!’_

No one, not even Tom, had any clue what would happen when the boy found his answers or what those answers would mean to a great many people.


	7. The Toy Truck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom is discovered committing a crime while Billy creates some trouble of his own

Tom’s hand was about to withdraw from the cookie jar when he heard a voice behind him announce his guilt.

“I’m going to tell on you!”

He turned to see Amy pivot and then run from the room to find one of the adults. The boy swiftly leapt from the chair that he was standing on and was nearly out of the kitchen when he heard Mrs. Cole’s voice calling his name. The matron didn’t sound happy.

“Tom Riddle! Get into my office immediately!”

He sullenly walked towards his destination and was nearly there when Amy walked out of that very room and gave him a knowing look. There was little doubt that she had informed on him and that he was in for trouble. The open door loomed before him as he arrived at the portal and he could see Mrs. Cole standing by her desk waiting for him. He took a deep breath and then stepped into the room.

“Close the door, Tom.”

The boy turned and then closed the door as he tried to think of a way out of the mess that he was in. He wondered if the trick that he could do would work in this instance and thought desperately about the matron forgetting about the transgression that he had committed. The child glanced hopefully at the face of the woman and was disappointed to see that she didn’t look any happier than she had when he had entered the room.

“Is there something that you would like to tell me, Tom?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Is there something that you would like to tell me about what happened in the kitchen?”

Disaster reared its ugly head and he knew that there was little chance that the woman had forgotten about what she had been told. He was in for it and in for it good. Only telling the truth might smooth some of her ruffled feathers and he felt a tear run down his face as he looked up into her face.

“I was in the cookie jar trying to get a cookie.”

“And did you have permission to do such a thing?”

“No, ma’am, I didn’t.”

“And what do you suppose I should do to you for trying to steal?”

“I really do not know, Mrs. Cole, but I should imagine that it shall not be pleasant.”

“You are precisely correct, Tom. As your hand desires activity I am going to give it some! You shall write “I will not steal food from the orphanage” over and over again until I am satisfied that you have learned the lesson.”

As the boy stood before the matron and listened to his sentence being stated his mind went back to the person who had brought him to this situation.

_‘I’m going to repay you for this, Amy. You are going to wish that you had never tattled on me!’_

“Now, go to your room and stay there until I call for you. As you have a table in your room you shall begin writing the sentences. Be sure to stop by the classroom to gather ample paper and pencils and see to it that the writing is legible or you shall do it all over again.”

“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Cole.”

“Tom, I cannot and will not allow stealing in this orphanage. Now, go to your room and stay there until you are called for dinner!”

The boy hurried to the door, yanked it open and then walked to the classroom to gather the required materials before racing up the stairs to his room. On the way he passed Billy who could not pass up on the chance to add insult to injury.

“Be glad that you will not want to sleep on your belly, Tom. I would imagine that if she had been truly angry your arse would be a bit painful.”

“Piss off, Billy!”

The door to his room slammed behind him as Tom shoved it as hard as he could. He knew that this would bring one of the adults as soon as he did it, but his emotions were running wild. Moments later, the door opened to reveal Martha and the woman stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“Just why are you slamming this door, Tom? Do you want Mrs. Cole to become even angrier with you than she is?”

“No, ma’am, I do not.”

“Then from now on do not slam this door!”

Martha exited the room and pulled the door closed quietly as the boy flung himself onto his chair to begin writing. Tears raced down his cheeks as he sobbed and this made seeing the lines on the paper difficult. As he wrote he would spend time thinking about the revenge that he wanted on Amy and Billy and finally rose to look out through his window into the courtyard below. The squeals of playing children reached his ears and the rage in him grew when he saw Billy playing with his truck. The anger increased when the boy looked up to see Tom in the window and then smiled broadly as he waved up at the captive. Tom turned away from the window and thought for a moment about going down to the courtyard to take back the truck, but that plan had the problem of the order that he had been given to remain in his room. He sat for a while and tried to ignore the sounds from the frolic below but wasn’t successful.

Billy grinned to himself as he watched Tom glaring out through the window. He knew that the boy considered the truck that he was playing with his despite the decree from Mrs. Cole that all of the children could play with it.

_‘The git is probably up there bawling like a baby! I have his precious truck and there is nothing that he can do about it.’_

Billy really didn’t care about the truck and this lack of caring was demonstrated as he rubbed the side of the toy hard against the brick wall of the building. This had the effect of leaving a large scar down the side of the toy as the brilliant crimson paint on it was transferred to the bricks leaving bare metal behind. The truck then impacted the wall as the boy recreated an accident. Finally, after several accidents, Martha appeared at the door to call the children in for their lessons. Billy rose and hurried inside as he left the devastated toy behind.

Tom had fallen asleep and Mrs. Cole opened the door to call him down to the classroom. When she saw that he was sleeping she relented and closed the door to allow him to continue. Tom was dreaming once again about the man that looked so much like him and then about a castle that overlooked a lake. He could see the castle as though he was inside it and beheld a massive room with large tables filling it. At the tables sat many children dressed in dark robes and another table filled with adults sat at the head of the room.

The boy awoke with a start at the sound of the first clap of thunder and raced to the window to see the rain pouring down outside. The courtyard below was empty of children as the torrents lashed the sides of the structure and ran down the glass of his window. He felt a pang of relief when he didn’t see the truck sitting in the rain and assumed that it had ventured into the building to wait out the storm. He would hear the occasional sounds made by the other residents of the building and turned from the window to return to his bed.

He thought momentarily about pulling his captive out of the box to play with it. That moment of joy was tempered by the fact that Mrs. Cole often prowled the building’s halls and he couldn’t chance the possibility of her catching him with the stolen toy. He often hoped for a new toy at Christmas but that had never happened, the only toys that the orphans received were ones that had been donated by local churches. The truck was the newest toy that he had ever enjoyed and he couldn’t wait to play with it once again.

The hours passed slowly as the rain fell from the sky outside and he finally heard the children being called for dinner. He hoped for a moment that Mrs. Cole would relent and let him eat with the rest of them but no knock came at his door. The single bulb hanging from the light socket cast a pale glow down on the boy and he glanced up at it from time to time. He was about to surrender to despair when the door opened and Martha stepped in.

“Tom, it’s time for dinner and your bath. Get downstairs and get on with it.”

The boy rose and brushed past the woman before walking down the stairs and on to the dining room. He made quick work of his meal and soon his dishes resided in the sink along with those that others had used. The boy, full at least, walked to the lavatory where the bath water waited. He was soon undressed and scrubbing his body while the others sat around the radio as they listened to the program that it was playing. He finished bathing and then dried himself before venturing out to be inspected by Mrs. Cole. The inspection went well as it normally did and she was soon inviting him to listen to the radio. It was an invitation that he refused, he was far more interested in other things. He turned and left the room unaware of the grin on Billy’s face as the boy thought about the truck and the look that Tom would have on his face when he saw the toy.

Tom opened the door to the closet that held the toys and was stunned to find that the truck was nowhere in evidence. He moved things around as he frantically searched for the toy and became more upset as he did. When he had made a large mess searching for it he turned to find Martha standing in the hall behind him.

“Just what are you doing, young man?”

“I’m just looking for the truck.”

“Well, there will not be any playing with it tonight. Now pick up this mess and then get upstairs to your room. It’s nearly bedtime, so get busy with this.”

Tom was soon busy clearing the toys from the floor and it wasn’t long before the other children were passing him on the way to their bedrooms. Billy sniggered as he watched the boy labor at his task. He had no doubt what Tom was looking for and anticipated the anguish that the boy would feel when he saw the remains of the truck. A few minutes after the last orphan had ascended the stairs Tom closed the door to the closet and he hurried up to his room, his mind filled with concern.

_‘Where did they put my truck?’_

He tried to sleep that night and found that his mind was just so filled with anguish about the missing truck that he couldn’t. The long hours passed slowly and he frequently found himself considering prowling the halls to search for it, but changed his mind when he thought about the consequences if caught.

While Tom fretted about the truck Billy lay in his bed congratulating himself about the toy and the pain that it would cause. He had no doubt that the smaller boy would go nearly insane when he saw the remnants of the toy. The boy fell asleep laughing to himself about the pain that he was causing another child.

When the morning came Tom sprang out of bed and hurried to get dressed before running down the stairs. Instead of turning towards the dining room he started to open the front door and make his way out into the courtyard but was stopped by a shout from Mrs. Cole.

“Tom, where are you going? The breakfast table is this direction and I want you back here right now.”

“But my truck…”

“The toy truck will wait, now get back here immediately.”

Dejected, the boy turned around after closing the door and walked to the lavatory to wash his hands and face for breakfast. As hungry as he was breakfast was the last thing on his mind and the time it took seemed to go on forever. Finally, they were released and hurried to walk to the front door and the play time that awaited them. Tom was nearly delirious with impatience and nearly burst out through the door to search for the missing toy. The search didn’t take long and there was a loud howl of pain as Tom beheld the damaged truck.

It was a pitiful sight and Tom was almost instantly in tears as he knelt down by it. The damaged metal of the toy had several dents and the red paint was scraped away in other areas. The once glorious yellow stakes on the bed were broken and several of the animals that had populated the bed were also broken. A wheel was bent sideways and was nearly separated from the vehicle. Tom gathered the ruined toy into his arms and to his chest as he cried with a broken heart. It was then that a shadow fell across him and he looked up to see Billy standing over him with a broad smile pasted on his face.

“I see that you found your truck, Tom. It looks like it had a little accident; well actually it had several accidents yesterday. The driver was an extremely poor one and kept running into the building and other things. Look, it even killed all of the animals. That’s really too bad!”

Billy began to laugh hysterically and was still doing so when the truck hit him in the face. Tom had risen swiftly and swung the toy in a vicious arc that allowed him to hit the larger boy. Billy staggered backwards as Tom advanced on him wielding the toy as a weapon. Trying to retreat Billy tripped over the laces of his perpetually untied shoes and fell heavily to the ground as Tom struck at him again. The boy with the advantage was ready to strike again when arms grabbed him from behind and pulled him away from the child on the ground.

“YOU BROKE MY TRUCK, BILLY! YOU BROKE IT ON PURPOSE! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”

Martha gripped the struggling boy desperately as Amy raced inside to find Mrs. Cole. The woman holding the boy felt several strikes against her skin as the child swung his arms and legs in an attempt to escape. She had every reason to believe that she would bear bruises from this encounter and was grateful when the matron emerged from the orphanage. They struggled to get Tom into the building as he continued to fight against them. Finally they got him into the office and managed to close the door so he couldn’t escape while Martha hurried outside to tend to Billy.

Tom sat in the chair that he had been deposited into and glared straight ahead as the matron stood over him. Tears filled his eyes and stained his cheeks as he sobbed uncontrollably.

“Tom,” Mrs. Cole began, “the truck was not worth the possibility of hurting another child. You could have done serious harm to Billy, is that what you wanted?”

“I did not want to harm him, I wanted to _kill_ him!”

“You don’t mean that, do you?”

“I mean every word of it.”

“Tom, it was a toy truck. It is certainly not worth hurting someone over.”

“It was _my_ truck and he broke it on purpose because he knew how I felt about it.”

“And it was very wrong of him, but that did not give you the right to attack him the way that you did.”

Tom realized that he wasn’t going to win the argument and at that moment considered that there was another way to deal with Billy. He hung his head and then feigned tears as well as quiet sobs.

“I have to check on Billy, go on up to your room and we will talk about this later.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Cole watched the boy leave her office and then hurried into the classroom where Martha was tending to cuts and bruises on Billy. The boy was going to have at least one black eye, that was for certain and several painful bruises.

“Billy, why did you do that to the truck? It was one of the few nice toys that we had here. Now you boys will have to play with it as it is! Was that fair to the other children that you decided to destroy that toy?”

“What about me? He hit me with it and was going to again when Martha stopped him. He could have killed me!”

“I understand that, but you did not have the right to destroy that toy. You knew how Tom felt about it and did it out of spite. I honestly do not understand why you two boys cannot get along. You are fighting constantly and I am quite tired of it.”

“I am quite tired of the fact that he gets away with things and others do not!”

“He is punished the same as all of the rest of you and I will not have you questioning me or speaking to me in that manner, young man! Unless you want a dose of my switch you will change your tone when you speak to me. Am I understood?”

Billy winced as more iodine touched a wounded but nodded his understanding. The smaller boy had done considerable damage and each touch of iodine angered Billy more. It was like he was being hit all over again by the truck. Even though he was nodding his agreement he was also planning a strike against Tom, a strike that would teach the smaller boy a lesson that he would remember for a long time.

In his room, Tom sat quietly as he looked down at the truck that lay in the center of the courtyard where had landed after being thrown by Martha. Deep inside he wished that he could heal the truck and make it look as it had before Billy had ruined it. He rose from the chair and then stole down the stairs and out through the front door. Within a few moments he had gathered the parts of the toy including the animals that had been lying in a pile where Billy had dropped them the day before. He clutched the toy to his chest once again before scurrying back into the building and up to his room where he placed the ruined toy gently on his bed.

As he stared at it with tear filled eyes he tried to remember what it had looked like before Billy had destroyed it. As he thought about it he wished that the damage had never occurred and that the truck was whole again. He could almost see it as it was and really wasn’t aware of anything except his deep desire to have it as it had been.

So deep was his thought that he didn’t hear a slight sound as the metal body of the truck mended itself and the animals became whole again. The red paint began to flow over the newly straight sides of the truck and the stakes that enclosed the bed refastened themselves to their former locations. There was a light noise as the bent axle became straight once again and the tire assumed its former position under the fender. Finally the bumper that had been hanging askew reconnected itself to the frame of the toy and the truck was whole once again.

Tom’s eyes refocused as he wiped the tears from them and widened when he saw the truck in all of its glory. The toy looked as if it had just come from the store and he hurried to gather it into his arms. It was while he was doing this that a thought came to his mind. He couldn’t let anyone see the truck as it was now, they would never understand it. Tom himself didn’t understand how this had come to pass but he was grateful. He carried the truck to his cupboard and looked at a nail that held down a large board. In his mind he could see that nail coming out of the hole it occupied and a moment later it had. He lifted the board and inspected the space that it had left behind. It was more than large enough for the truck and his box and the best part was that there was no way for the mice that inhabited the building to enter this space. Within moments the truck and the box sat side by side in the space and the boards were safely refastened.

Mrs. Cole stepped out into the courtyard to pick up the damaged toy and was astounded to find that it wasn’t to be found. She assumed that Martha had collected it for disposal in the dustbin and opened that container to look for it. There was nothing to be seen except for the normal refuse that was commonly found there. She closed the lid and walked into the kitchen to find Martha busy cooking the mid-day meal.

“Martha, what did you do with the toy truck?”

“Ma’am?”

“The toy truck that the boys were fighting over what did you do with it?”

“The last that I saw of it the thing was still lying out in the courtyard.”

“Tom must have gone down and picked it up. I told him to stay in his room.”

“Please don’t be too hard on the boy, Mrs. Cole; he is very broken up about the toy," Martha pleaded. "It meant a great deal to him.”

The matron nodded her assent and then walked back to her office to enter the incident into her records. Tom would be ten in December and, although he had his problems, she still hoped that a family would adopt him and set him straight. She didn’t have the same strong hopes for Billy; he had seen a lot of violence in his sort life, especially before he had come to the orphanage.

As she wrote in the files of each boy she wondered what would happen next. Tom, up in his room, had no such questions. He knew exactly what was going to happen and was looking forward to seeing the look on Billy’s face when it did.


	8. Ponds, Pranks and Punishments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another outing, another near tragedy and another conflict between Billy and Tom

The happy shrieks of children echoed through the air as the orphans from Wool’s Orphanage capered about in the meadow that they had been brought to for a picnic. Two outings in one year was an uncommon treat, but work was being done to the building and the workmen had requested that the children be absent to keep them from underfoot. Neither of the adults minded either because it gave them a chance to take in sunshine and fresh air, the latter of which London was in short supply of. The numerous factories kept the city under a pall of fog and smoke that sometimes made breathing uncomfortable.

They were in a different meadow than the last one they had visited and were happy that there were no caves to explore. Amy and the other little girl were busy playing on the shore of the pond as they made mud pies and the boys were wading in the shallow water looking for small creatures to capture. Martha and Mrs. Cole would occasionally shout out a warning or issue a command to a child who was not being mindful of the depth of the water.

Tom sat on the bank as he dangled his feet in the water and watched his reflection in its rippled surface. On occasion he would toss a pebble into the water to watch the expanding rings spread from its point of impact. Across the pond Billy was having a great time as he jumped into the water to create huge splashes. The boy was enjoying the fact that when he hit the water he would drench anyone in range with a deluge. Tom watched the boy with only mild interest and leaned back on the grass to stare up into the sky. This was one of those days that rarely came, a chance to sit outside and relax in the sun or play to your heart’s content.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted as a wave of water washed over him, courtesy of a laughing Billy who had swum across the pond to strike at the other boy. Tom sputtered as he tried to clear the water from his face and had nearly done so when a hand grabbed his leg and he was yanked off of the bank. He landed in the water and desperately stroked for the air above. When he regained the surface he tried to reach the shore but was grabbed again and pulled under by the larger boy. The pair grappled under the water, oblivious to the shouts of the adults who even now were running towards the scene. Tom finally managed to break free and swim to the surface where he was pulled from the water by a thoroughly wet and angry Martha. He struggled away from the water and collapsed next to a tree that was well away from the pond.

Billy surfaced on the other side of the body and then stood up in the water to laugh at the boy who was lying next to the tree. Martha screeched a directive to him to return to the blanket and he dove back into the water to swim to the scene. As he swam towards the other side of the pond again he was struck by an incredible pain in his midsection and he doubled over in the water before beginning to sink. Martha and Mrs. Cole noticed him vanishing but attributed it to defiance and made a mental note that the boy was in for severe punishment when he arrived.

The stricken boy sank towards the bottom of the pond as the pain in his belly intensified and he felt as though he was going to die. Panic struck him as he desperately attempted to regain the surface as his victim had done only a short time before. He had just reached the surface when he was pulled under again in a large splash that was visible to all on the shore. Breaking the surface again, he had time to shriek for help before he vanished under the water again. An unbreakable grip seemed to hold him as he was pulled deeper and deeper under the surface of the pond. Finally he felt another grip on his arm and he was yanked towards the shore and shallower water. When his face emerged into the air and he was able to breathe again the boy took a huge breath into his lungs. He felt himself being pulled onto the grassy bank and thrown onto his belly as they pressed on his back to try to force the water out of his lungs.

When he finally was able to roll over he opened his eyes and was able to see a very wet Martha standing over him while Mrs. Cole knelt next to him. Both of the women looked down at him with concern that was mixed with anger.

“What in heaven’s name were you trying to do, Billy Stubbs? You were repeatedly warned about fooling around in the water and could have been seriously hurt.”

“Something grabbed me and pulled me under.”

“Nonsense, there was nothing in that pond larger than a fish.”

“I swear, Mrs. Cole, something grabbed me and pulled me under. It took me all the way to the bottom to try to drown me.”

“The bottom was no more than five feet down and if it hadn’t been for Martha you may very well have drowned.”

“But I’m not lying, Mrs. Cole, something tried to pull me down. It must have been Tom, look at him, he’s all wet!”

“Tom is wet because you pulled him into the pond a short time ago and thought that it was very funny. He also has not left the tree where he went to sit down after you pulled your shenanigan. When we get back to the orphanage you can expect a taste of my switch for pulling him into the pond, not following Martha’s directions to come to the bank, fooling around in the water and lying about Tom. Now you are to sit down right here and you are not to move for the rest of the time we are here.”

Tom watched all of this with glee as the boy received a royal bawling out for what he had done. It had been fun to watch Billy as he struggled in the pond and Tom wished that it could happen again, but there was little chance of that happening. The matron had given him strict instructions to remain near the blanket and he wouldn’t be near the water again.

The rest of the children were disappointed when told that they needed to stay out of the water for the remainder of the day. The two small girls abandoned their mud bakery to return to the blanket after washing their hands clear of the mud that coated them. Tom realized that the women were gathering their charges back to the blanket and rose from where he was sitting to walk back to the blanket.

Finally, not long after the meal was consumed the children were gathered into the wagon that had brought them out to the pond and soon were on their way back to the road where the bus awaited them. All of them knew that likely this was the last outing of the year and that definitely one of them had an appointment in the matron’s office when they got back to the orphanage.

Tom watched as the countryside moved past them and occasionally glanced at Billy.

_‘How did you like your swim, Billy? Next time, maybe you won’t come back up until they drag the pond! I will try to make that happen next time.’_

Billy sat next to Mrs. Cole the entire trip back and knew that the matron wasn’t going to forget her threat. He was going to a switch used on his backside and there was precious little that he could do about it. The whole episode had been very queer, he had been fine until his belly started to hurt and then the powerful pull had taken him. It had felt just like large hands were pulling him under the water and he had been powerless to resist it. The most frightening thing about it was the fact that when he had closed his eyes he had seen what appeared to be a set of glowing red eyes staring at him as if waiting to see him die.

The trip home was much shorter than any of them wanted it to be, with the exception of Martha who couldn’t wait to get out of her soaked clothing. They left the bus which had brought them home and soon were crossing the courtyard to enter the building. Billy entered the building feeling the familiar dread in his belly and grip of the matron’s hand on his ear as he was directed to her office. The remaining children were shooed upstairs to change their clothes if they were muddy or wet. They would be expected to bring them down to the laundry to be washed.

As they hurried up to their rooms they heard the door to Mrs. Cole’s office close and then the rhythmic sound as Billy received his punishment. The boy would have a hard time lying on his back or sitting down for a while, the matron was making certain of it. The expulsion of her wrath would take a very long time from Billy’s point of view.

Tom had changed his clothing and taken it down to the laundry in near record time so that he could hear the happenings in the office. Nothing pleased him more than the fact that Billy was getting yet another dose of the switch. He had been highly angered by the fact that Billy had pulled him into the pond and had thus deserved what had happened to him in the pond and what was happening to him now.

The noise from the office ended and then the door opened to release a sobbing Billy and a still angry Mrs. Cole. Tom made haste to continue on to the laundry so that it wouldn’t be apparent that he had been listening to the interaction that had occurred behind the closed door. Martha greeted him as he dropped off the clothing and then took the lid off of the cookie jar to offer him a treat. The boy eagerly reached into the container to select a cookie before returning to the dining room to sit down to enjoy it.

It wasn’t long before he was joined by several of the other orphans who had their own cookies to enjoy. They sat quietly as Mrs. Cole entered the room and told them that they could go out into the courtyard to play. As he walked to the door to go outside Tom wished that he could bring the truck out to play with it but knew that the adults would question its current state. There was no possible way that he could explain the repairs that had occurred and he didn’t want to try.

The doors to the building burst open and the children rushed out into the remaining sunlight of the day to play with the few toys that they had. Tom found a shady spot under the small tree that graced the courtyard and gathered some twigs to build a small structure out of them. He imagined an old man who lived there with his idiot son and crazy daughter as they went through their horribly dull lives. In his mind he saw the girl watching a man on a horse and realized that it was the same man that he had seen in his dreams. He watched as the woman tried desperately to gain the attentions of the handsome man and then one day offer him a drink of cold water.

His thoughts were interrupted by Martha calling them in to the building to wash up for dinner and he realized that he had been daydreaming for quite a long time. He rose from the place that he occupied and walked towards the building, but not before smashing the tiny structure flat with his heel. He realized that it was simply another piece of the puzzle that he needed to solve before he could find out who he actually was. There was no doubt that the people that he had seen were a part of his life and he wondered if the woman might not have been his mother. He certainly hoped not, what he had seen of her told him that she was completely mental. The rest of her family was even worse than she had been.

As he washed for the meal, the boy shuddered as he remembered the state of the home that the people he had seen lived in. It was little more than a hovel and even this orphanage that he live in was wonderful compared to it. He finished washing and turned to find Billy glaring at him from the other side of the room. At first, Tom thought that the larger boy was going to attack him, but Billy merely watched him from a distance as he left the room.

 _‘He is probably a little tender after his meeting with Mrs. Cole,’_ Tom thought as he smiled to himself as he walked to the dinner table. He turned in time to see Billy emerge from the lavatory and then walk back down the hallway to the stairs. The boy slowly ascended the stairs and Tom could hear his tread as he walked to his room and then the door closed behind him. Obviously Mrs. Cole had ordered him to bed without dinner and the sentence would be carried out.

Dinner that night was pleasant and Tom was soon settling down with the rest of the children and the adults around the radio as the program played. The show was incredibly funny and he laughed along with the rest of those in the room. When the program ended the children were shooed up to their rooms after using the lavatories and were soon settling into their beds. Tom smiled to himself as he thought about the boy who had dragged him into the water of the pond. Billy was no doubt hungry and wishing that he could get something to eat. Tom went to sleep dreaming delicious thoughts about the revenge that he had taken on Billy and the punishment that the boy had received from the adults.

Billy was having no delicious thoughts about anything. He lay in his bed on his belly thinking about how much his backside still hurt and the fact that his stomach was empty. True, he had experienced the switch and the lack of dinner before but tonight was different. Somehow Tom had managed to nearly drown him in the pond and had gotten away with it.

But how had he done it? When Billy had last seen him, Tom was sitting underneath the tree well away from the water and could not possibly have reached him. Then there was the set of red eyes that Billy was sure that he had seen before he had blacked out. What were those all about? How had Tom done this to him? Billy intended to find out and make the smaller boy pay. No other boy had ever angered Billy as much as Tom did and now Billy was under careful scrutiny by the women that ran the orphanage. There was very little chance that he could get to Tom unless…

Tom, asleep in his room, didn’t hear Billy climb out of bed and creep to the door of his room. Billy cursed silently as the door creaked softly when he opened it, he stepped out into the corridor and stood in the darkness to determine whether he had been heard or not. When there was no response from anyone in the building he stole quietly towards the room that held his intended victim. He sneaked along the wall, keeping to the shadows, as he approached the door to Tom’s room.

“You’re going to get yours now, Tom.”

He arrived at his destination and tried to quietly open the door into the chamber. Tom, deep in sleep, didn’t hear the door as it opened or the soft sound made by Billy’s bare feet on the hard wood floor. The small space between the door and the bed meant that Billy was soon standing over the other boy and he looked down at the sleeping visage with malicious intent. Billy leaned down and drew back his fist in preparation to strike at the child in the bed.

Tom awoke at the last instant and realized the danger that he was in. Having only a moment to react he twisted to one side as the fist slammed into the pillow that his head had rested on only a moment before. He lashed out with his foot towards the belly of the larger boy and was rewarded with a grunt of pain from Billy. His joy was short lived as the larger boy’s fist slammed into his cheek and Tom felt the almost instant bruising on his face. Tom struck again, this time scoring a hit of his own on Billy’s face which drove the larger boy backwards to slam into the wall.

In her bedroom below, Mrs. Cole was awakened by the sound of the conflict in the room above and rose swiftly to hurry out of her room and up the stairs. The shouted curses from Billy and Tom drew others out of their bedrooms as the sounds of the fight continued. Billy hadn’t counted on the fight being so two sided and realized that the noise just might bring one or both of the adults to the rescue. His attention was drawn at the wrong moment and Tom took advantage of it as he swung once again.

Billy took the surprise punch and staggered away before clutching his now broken nose as the blood course down his face from the injured feature. The large boy was starting to recover when the door swung open to reveal Mrs. Cole, who strode into the room and grabbed Billy by the arm to move him forcefully out of the room and into the hallway. Tom remained where he was as he tried to catch his breath and keep an eye on his attacker.

“What is the meaning of this?” Mrs. Cole shouted at the boys after Tom had recovered enough to approach the matron.

“Tom hit me, I think that he broke my nose,” Billy responded as he tried to staunch the flow of blood dripping from his nose.

“I doubt very much that he broke your nose, but I would like to have you explain to me just why you were in Tom’s room at this time of night. As a matter of fact, Billy Stubbs, you were told to stay away from Tom when I spoke to you in my office.”

The large boy stood silently as he tried to think of a reason for being where he had been and realized that no excuse was going to work. He had been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar and now faced severe punishment. Tom sported several bruises and it was obvious that he had been struck several times by Billy. He had obviously fought back as evidenced by the injuries that Billy had sustained.

“Tom, what can you tell me about this incident?”

“I woke up and Billy was in my room and he was getting ready to hit me.”

“What had you been doing prior to that?”

“I was in my bed sleeping, Mrs. Cole.”

The children who had gathered in the hall to view the proceedings hurried back into their rooms as a stern gaze from the matron met their eyes. Mrs. Cole finally looked at Tom and then told him to go back to bed before fixing Billy with a withering gaze.

“It’s downstairs and into my office with you Billy Stubbs! You obviously need another dose of the switch to convince you to leave the other children alone.”

“Please, Mrs. Cole, I promise that I will leave Tom alone. Please don’t switch me again.”

“Downstairs now, young man, I will not argue about it. You have earned it and shall receive it.”

Tom listened through the closed door of his room as the matron and luckless Billy walked down the stairs. He could hear the boy pleading with the woman and knew that it would do no good. Once the matron’s mind was made up it would be easier to move the orphanage than change the coming course of action. Billy would definitely sleep on his belly tonight and would feel it in the morning when he had to sit on his chair in the dining room and the wooden bench in the classroom.

Tom went to sleep smiling that night. His hated enemy had gotten his punishment but good and the only injury that he had sustained were a few bruises. Billy had yet to learn, and Tom couldn’t wait to teach him a lesson.


	9. Casting Stones Does Not Pay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy has great fun at the expense of others and ends up getting into more trouble than he bargained for. Meanwhile, Tom's actions are observed by another and the results may be more than any want to consider.

Several months had passed since the incident in Tom’s bedroom and, while he had searched for an opportunity to do so, Billy had been unable to find a chance to deal with Tom. The orphanage had changed as well as the young siblings had been placed in a permanent home with new parents. The boy was still upset about the missing soldier that was now Tom’s prisoner, but had brightened when his new parents told him that there would be new toys to replace the captive.

Tom sat in the classroom reading one of the new books that had been donated to the orphanage by a local church. He found the book highly entertaining and wished that he could be like the main character. It amazed him that the character could do some things that the other children could not and he wondered if he might not be related to the boy in the book. While he read the book he also thought about the increasingly vivid dreams that he had been having.

He had dreamt again about the dark haired man that he had seen many times. Somehow, he was not certain how; he imagined that he was seeing his father. He could never hear what they were saying but the man often was arguing with the woman that he believed was his mother. The belly of the woman was swollen with child and Tom knew that he was the child within her. How could he see and know all of this? Was the crazy old man his grandfather? Who was the other crazy man that lived in the house with the old man? Were they his relatives? Did they still live in the filthy hovel that he had often seen?

He broke out of his trance as the other children rose from their seats to hurry out into the autumn sun to play in the courtyard. Martha approached and then sat down on the chair next to him.

“Tom, the other children are going out to play.”

“I think that I would like to stay in here and read this book.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Very well, but if you decide that you want to come out you may.”

Tom nodded and then returned to the book and his daydream. In his dream he saw himself able to fly to deal with those who created problems for him. He saw himself able to read their minds and use that knowledge to punish them. He had often tried to imagine what the other orphans were thinking and, at times, thought that he had made some progress at his goal. He knew that he could implant suggestions in the minds of the other children as well as the adults; the finding of the elephant in Billy’s closet had proven that. But now he needed to know what they were thinking and this was his most desperate wish. To know what his enemies were thinking before they even knew themselves would be a most useful tool.

Christmas was coming soon, and with it another birthday for him. He would be ten years old at the start of the new year and couldn’t wait to see what gift he would receive from the organization that funded Wool’s Orphanage. The people that oversaw the institution tried to put a little joy into the lives of the children and there were always small gifts around the Christmas tree for them. They also provided something at each child’s birthday so that the children didn’t feel forgotten. Tom knew that it was normally clothing to fit the growing bodies of the children as well as a small toy or two for them to play with. 

Tom found himself looking forward to the snow that would fall soon because it was fun to play in. There was also the fact that snow on the ground meant an excuse if one of the children fell and injured themselves. It had been most useful last year when Herbert had been injured. The added benefit of a window that overlooked the courtyard helped Tom because he could choose his targets and deal with them from a distance while remaining apparently innocent.

He rose from the chair that he had been sitting on and then walked out of the classroom with the book in hand. The children were allowed to take the books with them as long as no harm came to the item and were returned so another child could use them. He bounded up the stairs to his room and laid the book on his bed while he sat down to watch the other children through the window. Tom gritted his teeth as he watched Billy in the yard below. 

As he watched, Tom noticed that Billy had started climbing the lone tree that graced the space. He knew that the boy would have a great time throwing the pebbles that he no doubt had in his pocket at the other children when they came into range. The fact that the impacts caused pain meant nothing to Billy nor did the switching that he often received. He acted like he was afraid of the matron, but in reality often laughed at her behind her back. Billy had once boasted that someday he was going to take the switch away from Mrs. Cole and use it on her backside.

“You all just wait and see! I’m going to take that switch and use it on her after I make her bend over her desk. She won’t sit proper for a week!”

The gathered children who had been listening to the boy had scattered when the matron had suddenly appeared. Billy might have gotten away with the whole thing except that Amy had tattled on him and the boy soon found himself in the office of the woman receiving a lesson in obeying authority. The matron had continued the lesson longer than normal only ceasing when her arm grew tired. Billy had staggered from the room holding his backside and crying. While the other children imagined that this would have a long term effect on the boy it didn’t and he was soon back to his antics, much to the terror of Amy.

Billy had learned that the small girl had been the informant and wasted no time in making life hell for the child. Amy had only recently come into possession of a doll to replace the one destroyed in the cave and had been horrified when she found the toy hanging by its neck from the light fixture in her room. The knot around the neck of the doll had been incredibly tight and it had taken some doing to get it free. Obviously Amy was blameless and Billy wasted no time in denying involvement in the action but while everyone knew who had done it, there was simply no evidence.

Now he had climbed the tree and was now seated in in the branches as he pulled a handful of pebbles out to begin throwing them at the other children when they came near enough. It was not long before the other orphans were congregated on the far side of the courtyard, spoiling Billy’s fun. He began to climb down and then noticed that he was being watched from above. He stuck his tongue out at Tom and then continued the climb down until he was on the ground. He settled down onto the ground under the tree where he continued to take target practice on the other children.

A noise on the street attracted the attention of both boys and they watched as an ancient wagon drawn by an equally decrepit horse moved slowly by the fence. Billy drew a rock from his pocket and, after only a moment, threw it at the horse. Tom, who had been watching the whole thing, suddenly concentrated on the rock and envisioned it striking not the horse but the driver. The missile changed its course and then impacted with the side of the driver’s face. 

The burly man jerked back on the reins of the horse and brought the wagon to a stop. Then he leaped from the seat and tossed the reins around the brake lever before striding towards the gate to the orphanage courtyard. Martha, seeing the approach of the obviously angry man, hurried towards the gate to intercept him.

“I want the bastard that threw the rock that hit me and I want him now!”

“I’m sorry that this happened sir, I shall make certain that he is punished.”

“I’ll punish him,” the man said as he drew the belt from around his waist. “Get over here, boy, and take the beating that you deserve.”

Mrs. Cole, hearing the ruckus from outside, hurried out into the courtyard to join Martha at the gate while Billy tried to vanish from view. A crowd was gathering outside the gate as well as onlookers watched to see what was going to happen. The growing crowed voiced their support of the injured driver and the women wondered just how they were going to stop the man if he pressed the issue and tried to force open the gate to get to Billy. A moment later, the answer presented itself as a police officer appeared to push his way through the crowd and order it to disperse.

“What seems to be the problem here?”

Tom, sitting in his room looking out through the window, recognized the officer as the one who had nearly collared him for the theft so many months ago.

“That little bastard over there threw a rock and hit me in the face,” the livid man announced as a thin trickle of blood continued its march down his face. “I want some bloody damn justice and I want it now!”

The officer looked through the gate at Billy, who was still trying to disappear, and then motioned for him to approach the gate. Billy, now frightened beyond thought, slowly rose and then walked towards the gate that Martha and Mrs. Cole still endeavored to hold closed.

“Did you throw a rock at this man?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

“Then why does he say that you did?”

“I threw it at his horse.”

“Why would you do such a thing as that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you are coming with me down to the station where this man can fill out his complaint.”

“Is he being arrested?” Mrs. Cole asked.

“I am afraid so,” the officer responded as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “Come out here, boy.”

Martha and Mrs. Cole stepped to one side as Billy approached and then opened the gate to step out to be arrested. The burly driver watched the boy without giving any indication that he was going to let the incident slide. Billy was in an incredible amount of trouble and there was nothing that Mrs. Cole or the orphanage could do about it. Billy watched through tear filled eyes as the metal cuff encircled his wrists and clicked closed lightly.

“Come on, boy, the magistrate is in today and will want to deal with you immediately.”

“I don’t get to beat him?”

The officer turned to the driver who had spoken and still held the belt tightly in his hands.

“No, sir, I cannot allow you to beat the child, but you are more than welcome to come with us to the station to file a complaint.”

“But it’s not right, I suffered this injury! He could have taken my eye out with that rock that he threw. If he had hit my horse the old nag might have bolted and caused an accident and then there might be more injuries than just this,” he said as he pointed to his swelling face.

“I am quite sorry, sir, but I cannot allow you to beat this child.”

The remainder of the children watched as the officer began to lead the sobbing boy away as the driver reluctantly nodded his agreement. Tom watched from the safety of his window and grinned with amusement as his enemy walked beside the officer and soon vanished from view. The driver slowly climbed back up onto the seat of his wagon and, after gripping the reins, released the brake and urged the horse on its way.

Mrs. Cole hurried back into the building to grab her shawl and then rushed back out to walk to the station where Billy was going to be held until he saw the magistrate. The boy had been in trouble many times but this was an assault on the driver of a vehicle which could have resulted in a terrible accident. The possibility of death had been extremely likely and, had they occurred, the boy would have been in far more trouble than he was.

Martha allowed the other children to continue playing because, with Mrs. Cole gone, there was no adult that could conduct lessons in the classroom. The girl tried the best that she could to help the children, but really wasn’t much better off than they were when it came to education. She hadn’t been afforded the opportunity to have much in the way of schooling, being required to help her parents pay the bills by going to work as a cook in the small restaurant that they had operated. She had left school shortly after her tenth birthday and her education had stopped there.

She stood near the building to keep an eye on the children as they played and never realized that Tom had crept down the stairs to seek out his former captive, the elephant. He knew where it was kept and hoped that neither Martha nor Mrs. Cole returned any time soon. Unable to open the cabinet, Mrs. Cole had set the elephant on a shelf in her office and it was there that Tom found it. The small item was stashed behind some other trinkets in the hope that it would go unnoticed, but it hadn’t. Tom had longed for the elephant since it had been recovered from Billy’s closet. He swiftly recaptured the beast and then hurried out of the office to rush back up the stairs where the small figure was to join the toy soldier in prison.

He knew that the matron would notice the theft but, with all that was going on now, he hoped that she would put it aside and he could make her forget about it. After the nail was safely sunk back in its hole he returned to the window to watch the activity below. The problem was that Tom hadn’t been the only one who had been watching activity and, as she walked back out into the courtyard, Amy considered the power that she now held. Her fortunate need to take a trip to the lavatory had given her the edge over Tom that she had been looking for and this time it would go much differently than the cookie incident had. She hurried out of the building to rejoin the other children at play, her absence unnoticed by Tom who assumed that the girl was playing on the stairs that led into the structure.

While all of this was going on Billy was sitting in a chair that was in front of the desk of the police captain. The officer with the ruddy complexion that contrasted with his white hair looked down at the boy who had been before him before. The fact that in the past numerous chances had been given to the child didn’t help the boy’s cause any. Billy, for his part, hunkered down as low as he could in the chair while the still angry driver explained the happenings to the officer who was taking his complaint. Several loud comments accompanied by the display of the injury told Billy that this was not going to go away anytime soon. A few minutes later large doors opened and several people exited the now emptying court chamber. Billy had been in the room before and dreaded the fact that the magistrate who was seated behind the bench had seen him before. The officer who had led him to the building led him into the large room where he was soon face to face with the man that he feared the most.

“William Stubbs, I wondered when I would see you again. What have you done this time?”

“Your Honor, the child is accused of throwing a stone which struck the victim in the face. He claims that he intended to hit the horse of the victim but missed and hit the driver instead.”

“Why would you throw a stone at a horse on a busy street?”

“I was just having fun; I didn’t mean to hit him.”

“But had you struck the horse it might have gotten out of control and possibly run down innocent passersby. Had you considered any of this when you were having your “fun”?”

“No, sir.”

“As you have been before this court before for other crimes and have been freed to the Wool’s Orphanage, I considered doing this once again. But none of this seems to have made any impact upon you I am going to sentence you to ten days in jail, during that time you shall work to pay for the injury that your actions have caused. I am ordering you taken immediately from this room to the jail to begin your sentence.”

Mrs. Cole stood at the back of the courtroom and had heard the decree of the magistrate. It was done, Billy had been sentenced to jail and there was nothing that she could do about it. She watched as the weeping boy was led from the room without hesitation or consideration of his pleas. Finally, she turned and left the building to walk back to the orphanage but stopped when she heard a man’s voice calling to her. She turned to see the driver of the wagon standing next to his vehicle.

“He got far less than he deserved. It would have been much more fitting if they would have let me give him the lashes that he earned.”

“What you wanted to do was brutal!”

“Is it any more brutal than the visits with the switch that you used to give me?”

It was then that she realized that the man before her had once been a resident of the orphanage. He was barely recognizable as the small boy that had met with the switch on several occasions. Now he stood a full head taller than she and was much larger.

“That was different, James.”

“So you do recognize me, Mrs. Cole.”

“Yes, I recognize you; it just took me a while.”

“I don’t see how it could be any more brutal than what you used to do to me. Don’t forget that I know more about you than most in this city.”

Mrs. Cole blanched as the man laughed and then turned away, but not before sending a final comment her way.

“Be sure that you say hello to your friends when you get back to the orphanage. I’m certain that you pay it a visit every day.”

She watched as the large man vanished into the crowd as his wagon moved away. She had forgotten that there was one orphan who knew her tendencies towards the bottle. It had often been her hope that the organization that provided for the orphanage never would learn about it. It could mean the end of her employment at the institution.

Tom sat at the window of his room and watched as Martha began to herd the children back into the building in preparation for a meal. Amy glanced up at the window to see Tom glaring down at her and wondered just how to use the information that she had obtained. There was no doubt that it would be useful, but finding the right time to use it was the task at hand. That Tom would be furious was without question but so was the fact that he would be in a lot of trouble with Mrs. Cole. The little girl hurried to the girl’s lavatory to clean up for the meal that had been prepared and that would soon be served. Soon she would have her revenge for what had happened in the cave and she hoped that Tom got punished good for the secret that she was about to reveal.

She had no idea what the repercussions would be.


	10. Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy plays her card against Tom, but will the boy lose so easily?

The missing elephant was noticed almost immediately and just as immediate was the wrath of Mrs. Cole. An exhaustive search of the bedrooms was made but no elephant materialized.

Mrs. Cole stood in the middle of Billy’s room as she searched once again for the missing object. _‘It has to be Billy,’_ she thought, _‘he is just smart enough to make certain to hide it somewhere I will not think to look.’_ Finally she straightened from the stooped position that she had been in as she searched behind the steam radiator in front of the lone window of the room. She gasped slightly as she brushed her hand against the hot metal and was grateful that the contact wasn’t more prolonged.

As she straightened she thought about the boy who was even now serving his time in the jail for the attack on the driver. The amount of time given the child wasn’t extensive, but Billy was no doubt lamenting his current location. He had actually been very lucky that the magistrate hadn’t given him more time than he had. Billy had a long record of brushes with the police and the magistrates.

Tom sat in his own room while the matron demolished Billy’s rom in search of the missing item and now nearly regretted his decision to steal it. His room would be next and that meant cleaning it up once Mrs. Cole was finished. Even though there was very little in the rooms for the matron to disturb, the chore of cleaning afterwards was detested by all of the orphans. There was also the indignity of having to rearrange the rooms that currently had no occupants, but were being searched regardless.

The boy looked up as the door to his room swung open to reveal Mrs. Cole and he rose from the chair that he was sitting in as she entered the room. He hastened to exit the room as the woman pulled open the door to his cabinet and began to remove the contents before tossing them onto the bed. She examined the now empty interior of the cabinet and then ran her hand along the top of the door frame. Her only reward was the sudden sharp pain as a splinter pierced her finger. The injured finger went into her mouth as she examined the boards that made up the side and floor of the space. None of them gave way to her attempts to lift them even though Tom was nearly frantic with fear when he considered what would happen if he was found out.

The matron closed the door to the cabinet and then moved on to search under the bed. Tom knew that the room would be a disaster when she finished and mentally prepared himself for the task at hand. He barely glanced at Amy who was standing next to him and occasionally looking up at him with furtive glances. Minutes later, the matron stepped out of his room and, as she descended the stairs, Amy whispered a message that only he could hear.

“I know something that you do not!”

He looked sharply at the girl before she turned and skipped off to her room to begin organizing it. As he reentered his scrambled room his mind replayed what she had said and he wondered exactly what she meant by it. He opened the door to his cabinet and began to place his clothing back into it as they were refolded, but not before a careful examination of the board that covered his hiding spot. The wood was secure in its space and the objects under it hidden from view.

Amy finished with her room and then hurried down the stairs content with the knowledge that she held. She intended to inform on Tom, but was trying to figure out when to do it when inspiration entered her mind. She didn’t need to inform on him at all! All that she had to do was to let him know what she knew and then make him do whatever she wanted lest she let the cat out of the bag. The girl hoped that life would get much easier for her with him doing the chores that she had been assigned.

Tom was soon walking down the stairs to the classroom to find a new book to read when he encountered Amy. Normally the girl shied away from him as she had since the incident in the cave, but there was something different about her now and he wondered what it was. Then the girl approached him and was soon standing face to face with him.

“I know something about you that you do not want Mrs. Cole or Martha to know,” she hissed.

“What could you possibly know, Amy?”

“I saw what you did in Mrs. Cole’s office.”

Tom’s mind reeled as the gravity of her words hit him, yet he tried to seem unconcerned.

“I do not know what you are talking about!”

“Oh, you can be coy about it, but the fact is that I know what you took from her office.”

“You’re mental! I took nothing from her office.”

Amy raised her arm in a mimic of an elephant’s trunk and Tom realized that the girl held a very powerful card. He thought about attacking her but realized that this option would bring immediate repercussions. Amy would not hesitate to inform on him if he did that and he wondered what he would have to do to get out of this situation.

“I am going to tell Mrs. Cole unless you do exactly what I want you to do.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to do my chores every day until we leave this place.”

“That could be years, I am not doing your chores for that long.”

“Then I guess that Mrs. Cole will find out where her elephant is and who has it.”

“You do not have any proof and they will not believe you because they know that you do not like me.”

“Are you really sure of that? Surely you remember the cookie and what you got for that?

Tom glared at the smaller girl and realized that she held the upper hand, but then he considered something that could sway the attention from him and towards her. He hung his head as if in defeat, but knew exactly what he was going to do. The girl wouldn’t hold the advantage for long and he was going to make certain that she remembered this occasion for a very long time.

“Okay, I’ll do your damn chores, but don’t you say a word about this or you are as guilty as I for not saying anything.”

Amy’s triumphant smile faltered for a moment as she considered what he was saying. Tom was right, by not informing she was as guilty of the theft as he. Now she had to be careful about what she said or did. The advantage had shifted and she wondered how to get it back.

“What’s your first chore?”

“Oh, it’s done for the day, but you can gather the laundry tomorrow morning.”

“Fine, I’ll do it, but you keep your mouth shut!”

As they parted a plan formed in Tom’s mind and all that he needed was a chance to put it into play. Mrs. Cole was still searching for the elephant and he knew that she would conduct another search of their rooms. The plan had to be working before then or it would fail and fail badly. He walked back up to his room and, as he did, he glanced at the cupboard. It would have to be tonight after everyone was asleep and he could move unobserved.

Mrs. Cole was angry to the point of livid. Twice this item had been stolen and when it was found she intended to put it somewhere it would never be found by the children. While she was relatively certain that Billy was the thief she also realized that none of the children were above suspicion. She knew that the children often entered her office on some errand or another and any of those times would have been ample opportunity for the scheme. She sat down behind her desk to review some paper work that had arrived there that morning.

It was the decision by the church that funded the orphanage that guaranteed funding for another year. This was a bit of good news that she had feared would not come given the current world economic situation. America was still locked in the grips of a depression that had lasted for many years and showed no signs of easing while President Roosevelt encouraged the people of that nation to have faith that things would improve.

More worrisome to her, however, were the actions of Germany and its leader, Adolph Hitler. The German leader was busy building up his military and many wondered when war would come. Already, Austria had been swallowed by Germany and Italy was becoming expansionist as well. It was only a matter of time, many said, before war would grip the continent once again.

She laid the letter from the church back onto her desk and then walked out of her office and into the dining room to assist Martha who was preparing the meal. Tomorrow morning she would search the rooms of the children again while they were busy playing outside. Sooner or later the elephant would be found and when it was the child in possession of it would be punished.

Tom sat in his room with the door open so that he could appear very visible and unconcerned. He intended for Amy to get caught with the artifact and face the punishment that should be his. Certainly the girl would try to cast the blame onto him, but Mrs. Cole dealt only in what she could see not with what she had been told. Tattlers were listened to, but physical evidence was paramount in her eyes and she put that ahead of informants.

Amy was in her room as she straightened the clothing in her cupboard. Mrs. Cole had made a dreadful mess and the child was not content until her things were straight. She scanned the room again and then hurried to silently close the door to the chamber. Once behind concealment the child pried open a loose board that hid her own cache of items. She pulled a small metal dog from behind its cover and played with it silently. The item had been found in the courtyard, a remnant of a long departed orphan, and had been claimed by the one who had discovered it. There were items, however, that didn’t have such an innocent origin such as a long hunted for silver spoon that had come from a shelf in the dining room. It had migrated to this space a year ago and, despite an exhaustive search by the adults, had remained hers. She was certain and felt quite safe that no one else knew about this hiding spot for her treasures.

_‘Tom thinks that he scares me and he does, a little bit, but he will not dare to do anything lest I inform on him again. He can have that dumb old elephant as long as he does exactly what I want him to do. If Mrs. Cole was as smart as she thinks that she is she would realize that he spends a lot of time in this building without anyone around to watch him. He would have gotten away with this if I had not had to come into the building to go to the lavatory.’_

She continued her play while Tom schemed about his revenge. Amy had gotten him a switching when she caught him trying to snitch a cookie. But now she could count on one of her own once that old bat Mrs. Cole found her precious elephant. He suddenly jerked away from the steam register as the heat from the object entered his mind and with it a plan to further his dealings with the girl.

The remainder of the day was spent studying and then eating the dinner that had been prepared for them. A bath followed and soon the children were preparing for bed. Tom dressed swiftly and then climbed into bed where Martha found him snuggling under the blanket that covered it.

“Goodnight Tom, have pleasant dreams.”

“Goodnight Martha.”

He watched as the door closed behind the woman and then listened as her footsteps faded down the corridor before descending the stairs. The boy lay under the cover as he listened to the hissing of the steam as it went through the pipes that contained it. The heating system was the only thing that actually worked in the orphanage, but sometimes it worked too well and severe burns had occurred when children got too close to the metal of the registers.

Gradually the noises from the floor below settled into silence and Tom perceived that his chance was arriving. He slipped out of bed and to his cupboard where the board was soon loose and the elephant was in his hand once again. Regret filled him as he looked at the object after the board was back into place. He likely would never get a hold of the elephant again and he would miss it. Resolved to his course of action he stole to the door of his room and then quietly opened it before moving as silently as a ghost towards the chamber where Amy lay sleeping.

The girl remained asleep as Tom crossed her room to slip the elephant behind the leg of the register in a natural pocket formed in the wall. Then he crossed the room once again to stand next to Amy where he glared down at her for a moment before looking back at the hissing radiator with a plan clear in his mind. He concentrated for a moment as he looked down at the girl and then slipped back out of the room to steal back down to his own. The boy was no sooner gone when the eyes of the girl opened; she smiled broadly and then rose from her bed to walk towards her window.

Amy was having a wonderful dream. She stood at the rail of one of the great steamships that crossed the ocean to go to America. The throngs of those who were not as fortunate as Amy waved at the great vessel as it slowly moved away from its berth. The girl reached forward and gripped the rail with one hand as she waved with the other at those that she was leaving behind. A mild lurch of the vessel made her grip the rail with both hands and she watched as the crowd began to grow smaller. A mild burning smell reached her nose and she took it for the smell of the fuel that the great ship used to power itself on its voyages. She watched as the ship moved farther and farther from the shore and realized that the smell was becoming stronger. The strange part was that when she turned her head she could see no smoke coming from the great smoke stacks that towered above the decks. In fact, as she looked around her, the crowd of passengers that had surrounded her was now absent. Only one person remained in view and her heart nearly stopped as the person turned around.

She gasped as Tom turned to face her with an evil grin on his face and horrible red snake-like eyes. He approached the girl and she attempted to flee except that she couldn’t release the rail that now held her hands with fingers that had grown from the wood. Her hands were held fast as he neared her and then he stopped to look down at the rail where smoke was beginning to rise.

“Oh, dear, Amy, I do believe that something is burning.”

She looked down at her hands and realized that smoke was issuing from her flesh as she attempted to pull free. Abruptly she was back in her room as she stood by the steam radiator while she gripped it tightly. A horrible hissing noise issued forth and she noticed for the first time the fingers that held her hands in place, fingers that seemed to have grown from the very metal itself. Incredible pain filled her hands and she felt her flesh begin to sear as she tried in vain to pull free. The only thing remaining for her was to throw her head back and scream.

Not for the first time in recent history the residents of the orphanage were awakened by a terrible shriek that brought all of them to full consciousness immediately. As peal after peal of terror issued from the throat of the girl Mrs. Cole and Martha rushed from their rooms and then up the stairs to the source of the noise. Mrs. Cole hurled the door open and beheld the predicament of the girl although none of it made any sense to the sleep addled brain of the matron.

Amy stood as she had been while she clutched the extremely hot metal of the radiator with both hands and made no apparent attempt to release it. Martha rushed past the stunned matron and grasped the arms of the girl before pulling them free of the metal. Amy continued to scream as the gravity of what had occurred met her and she could see the damage done to her skin. Martha turned back to Mrs. Cole and screamed a directive.

“We need Doctor Barlow now!”

Mrs. Cole, shocked out of her stupor, rushed down the stairs to gather her coat while Martha hurried the wailing child down to the kitchen to begin slathering the injuries with one of her home remedies. The remainder of the children stood in the entrance to the dining room as they watched with wide eyes as the girl was tended to. Tom made certain to be in the front of the pack so as to be visible at all times. It was not long before the doctor and Mrs. Cole burst through the front door and pushed their way into the room where the girl was. Martha finally left Amy and then ushered the boys back up to their rooms and bed.

“Is Amy going to be all right?”

Martha looked with surprise down at Tom as he asked her the question and believed that the child was finally showing compassion for another. She hugged him tightly and then released him before answering his query.

“Her hands are badly burned, Tom. The doctor will do everything that he can, but the burns are serious. You have all been told to avoid touching the radiators and now you know why. Now off to bed with the lot of you.”

The boys hurried to their rooms and, once she was certain that they were not going to steal back down to spy, Martha walked back down to render any assistance that she could. Tom climbed into bed and then fell into a deep and rewarding sleep; his plan was working wonderfully and tomorrow would be complete. Amy would be implicated in the theft of the elephant and he would be in the clear. Added to that was the fact that his opponent was out of action for a while and wouldn’t be troubling him any time in the near future. He continued to dream his wonderful dream while Amy was tended to down in the dining room.

“I just do not understand why she continued to clutch the radiator. It was obvious that she was in terrible pain and yet she refused to let go of it,” Mrs. Cole said as the doctor tended to the hands of the wailing child.

As they worked on her hands Amy tried to tell them about seeing Tom in the office of the matron and how he had appeared in her dreams. Nothing made sense in the mind of the girl, but she was certain that the boy had something to do with her injuries, but had no way to prove any of it. None of the adults seemed to be listening to her and in fact looked at her as though she were speaking gibberish.

The small girl would finally be bandaged and then bundled out into the carriage that the doctor had ridden. As she felt asleep that night her dreams revisited her over and over again, but the most terrifying part were the red snake-like eyes that Tom had used to glare at her. She woke up screaming several times and Doctor Barlow finally resorted to giving her a sedative so that he could get some rest as well. The elderly doctor knew that the process of her recovery would be lengthy and that the child would no doubt have lasting marks from her ordeal, both mentally and physically, that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

Mrs. Cole woke the next morning after a restless night that was filled with nightmares. She saw the girl standing at the radiator with her hands ablaze and could hear laughter echoing through her mind. The laughter sounded familiar but she couldn’t place it. A careful search of the room revealed what she believed had been the reason that Amy had been at the register as the small elephant came to light. The tiny figure lay near one of the legs of the register and now the culprit had been revealed. That would be dealt with at a later time once the girl returned and had a chance to mend.

Tom sat at the table eating his breakfast when the matron came down the stairs holding the elephant and knew that his plan was working better than he had planned. Billy was dealt with, Amy had also been dealt with and soon the rest of the residents, including the adults, of the orphanage would come to fear him more than they could ever imagine.


	11. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy has visions which make her question her sanity as well as safety while Tom sees things that make him question the future.

Amy lay in her bed silently while the doctor tended to the wounds that the contact with the radiator had created. While her hands were no longer in contact with the hot metal they still hurt badly and the ointment that Doctor Barlow was applying to them did little to assuage the discomfort. She wondered what her dreams meant as they had been occurring every night for the three nights that she had spent in the home of the doctor. Each dream was more terrifying than the last with the one the night before being the most awful.

She had been walking down a peaceful country lane when Tom had appeared in front of her, but he was horribly changed. While still recognizable, his features had undergone a dramatic alteration. Gone was his dark hair, replaced by a bald head and his facial features were awful as well because his nose was absent, replaced by two slits where it had been. His skin, already pale, was nearly ghost white and he was clad in long dark robes.

Tom’s voice, already nearly a whisper was now nearly a snake-like hiss. But of all of the changes his eyes were the worst. The normally blue eyes were now red and like those of a snake. As she recoiled from him in the dream he had raised his arm and a strange green light had issued forth form the stick that he held in his hand. He had screamed words that she didn’t understand and then she had found herself falling to the ground once the light hit her. While she lay on the ground staring up at Tom several snakes had come out of nowhere with the largest coiling itself around Tom’s legs as he looked down at it.

The most terrifying part of it all was when Tom had looked down at the snake and had spoken to it!

“Dinner is served!”

The snake had lunged towards her with its mouth wide open and she knew that it was going to eat her as she had seen a snake eating a mouse one time. As its mouth closed over her head and face she could hear the chilling laughter of the boy that she knew.

“I am sure, Amy, that my pet shall find you much more useful than I ever have. Enjoy your meal, my friend!”

The girl had awakened the doctor from his sleep with her shrill screams and she couldn’t stop screaming even after the man had arrived by her side. Assuming that the child was having night terrors, the doctor’s nurse had simply taken the girl into her arms and held her tightly. The frightened child, who believed that she was in the grasp of the snake that she had seen in the dream, had gone nearly insane with fear and had thrashed violently in an attempt to escape. Through it all, the child had heard the insane laughter of Tom and wondered if somehow he had entered her mind and was in the process of killing her from within.

While Amy wondered about her sanity Tom was busy at the orphanage and believed that he had made some progress at his goal. Mrs. Cole had hidden the elephant and he realized that this was an excellent chance to try to enter the mind of the matron.

One morning, shortly after Amy’s injury, Tom sat at the breakfast table next to Mrs. Cole while she talked to Martha. He concentrated on her thoughts as he had on the dream that he had given Amy. It was all very confusing and he soon abandoned the attempt when a severe headache hit him. There was evidence, however, that he had been somewhat successful as the matron was soon also complaining about a severe headache. None of the adults connected the seemingly coincidental pain and instead attributed to a cold that was making the rounds through the orphans.

As he walked away from the table after having to swallow the remedy that Martha had prescribed he thought about the experience of attempting to breach her mind. He had seen strange images and he wondered what they all meant. Some of what he had seen made sense because he had seen the office of the matron, but the rest involved the castle that he had seen in his dreams. Tom knew that Mrs. Cole had no access to a castle and he wondered just exactly what the connection was.

His thoughts were further puzzled by images of another dark haired boy who wore glasses as well as a scar on his forehead. It was a most unusual scar, being in the shape of a lightning bolt. Obviously the boy and the castle were connected because the boy was in the castle, but Tom could not see himself anywhere. Was he seeing his son? The boy was wearing the very type of robes that Tom had seen himself in and Tom wondered if the castle weren’t some sort of school because all of the children that he had seen were dressed in a similar manner. But what sort of school would have its students dress in robes?

He returned to his room to gather the things that he needed for the class that would begin soon and he grimaced as he glanced at the unfinished arithmetic assignment. That meant that he would get no play time, but instead remain inside to work on the paper. Mrs. Cole would see to that and nothing that he could say would change her mind about it. He turned and walked slowly down the stairs before crossing the hall and entering the classroom where the other orphans were already taking their seats while the matron wrote problems on the board that stood at the head of the room. Mrs. Cole turned and watched as the children took their places before beginning the lesson for the morning.

“I need all of you to pass your math assignments forward.”

Tom’s hand was in the air before the final word was spoken.

“Yes, Tom.”

“I have not finished the exercises on my paper.”

There was a swift intake of breath from several people in the room as the news was relayed and Mrs. Cole’s expression hardened before she responded to the boy.

“Very well, Tom, you shall remain at your seat to finish them while the other children go out to play.”

“Yes, Mrs. Cole.”

As she turned back to the board Tom concentrated on entering her mind again. Mrs. Cole shook her head as a very strange feeling came over her and she staggered slightly before recovering to continue writing the exercises on the board for the children to copy on their papers. Tom had an interesting vison as he thought about the elephant. He could see a drawer opening and the elephant being placed within it. The interesting part of it was that he knew exactly what drawer it was and how easy it would be to access the item. Most impressive of all was the fact that, if the elephant was where he had seen it, he had made an important discovery. He had been able to read the mind of the matron!

The remainder of the class went swiftly and the other children were rushing out the door to play while Tom hurried to finish the late work and Mrs. Cole was taking more headache remedy. She couldn’t explain the reason for two splitting headaches in one morning and less than an hour apart. Tom was feeling very well, having avoided another headache like the one that had hit him earlier. He finished the paper and hurried to the office of the matron to present it to the obviously ill woman. Mrs. Cole accepted the paper and then watched as the boy hurried out of the room to get a few minutes of play in before the next class.

Martha watched the boy as he walked down the corridor and then out through the front door to join the rest of the orphans in the courtyard. She walked to the office of the matron and pushed the door open to check on Mrs. Cole. It was obvious that the woman was too ill to teach today.

“Mrs. Cole, shall I allow the children to continue to play?”

“Yes,” came a nearly whispered response, “tell them that they have the remainder of the day off.”

“Yes, Mrs. Cole.”

The children outdoors were overjoyed when they were told that there would be no further classes that day and set about making the most of the time that they had. Sitting in his cell, Billy would have been extremely happy to have the free time that the others were enjoying. He had served several days of his sentence and was now waiting for one of the officers to take him to the place where he would be working. He had been sentenced to clean the stables where the horses that drew the wagons were kept. Already he had spent several hours doing this work and his hands were covered with blisters from handling the shovel that he was forced to use. The stables were huge, a leftover from when horses did much of the work in London, and filled with many horses as well as other items in the areas now used for storage. A squawk of the cell door opening got his attention and he rose to follow the officer to the vehicle that would take him to work.

Billy looked around the streets of the city as he rode the truck to his workplace and was amazed at the size of it all. He had never seen the parts of the city that he was seeing now and realized that there must be much more that he was not seeing. The buildings were rather dilapidated and many were no doubt built many decades before. Some were obviously abandoned or on the verge of collapse.

When the truck stopped Billy jumped out of the back of it to join several men and other boys who were already being watched over by police officers as they toiled. He took hold of the shovel that he was handed and followed the line to the location that awaited them. In minutes he was standing at an area that had to yet been touched and viewing the pile of manure that needed to be moved to the waiting wagons. He would be here all day moving the reeking pile and now wished that he could be sitting in the classroom listening to Mrs. Cole. The time would pass slowly and the boy knew that several new blisters would join those already on his hands.

Amy lay in her bed and looked out through the window in her room as she wished that she could be outside playing. The dreams that she had been experiencing terrified the girl and she wondered if they would ever cease. The door to the room opened and the nurse stepped in with a tray that was filled with her mid-day meal. She was barely able to handle the spoon that was meant for the soup, but the nurse stayed by her side and assisted when she was needed.

“You poor thing,” the nurse lamented as she helped the girl. “Hopefully, your hands will mend soon and you will be able to do for yourself.”

The child nodded as she took another spoon of soup and let herself relax. She was safe from Tom here, he could not get into this room and harm her further, but she wondered just how safe she would be once she returned to the orphanage. The small girl wished that the mother that had abandoned her would return to reclaim her but knew that that was unlikely. She had overheard Mrs. Cole and Martha talking about her mother being one of “those women” and that they hoped that Amy would escape that fate. The child didn’t know what they meant by her mother being one of “those women” but didn’t think that she wanted to be one when she grew up.

Tom, Dennis and Herbert were busy playing in the yard and thought nothing of the misfortunes that had befallen their fellow orphans or Mrs. Cole for that matter. A weekday off from classes was something that normally only came around at the holidays and wasn’t to be wasted by sitting inside. Tom sat under the tree as he once again envisioned the strange things that he had seen.

He was standing in a strange house and could see a tall man in front of him, a man with dark hair and glasses; that he knew he had never seen before. The man was yelling something at someone and holding a stick that he was pointing at him. Then a green light had enveloped the man, the same green light that he had seen surround the man that he was certain was his father, and he had collapsed to the ground. Tom had seen himself, at least he believed it was himself, going up some stairs where he walked down a narrow corridor and arrived at a closed door. Behind the door he could hear a voice and then the door was thrown open violently to reveal a woman who threw herself at him and once again strange words were uttered before the green light swallowed the woman. She fell to the floor and he found himself staring at the contents of a crib where a small dark-haired child sat watching without expression as a stick was pointed at him.

There was no fear or apprehension in the expression of the child, instead only the normal curiosity that very young children express when confronted with something new or that they don’t understand. The strange words were spoken again and the green glow enveloped the child, but the child remained unharmed and Tom’s own vision went dark. He awakened to find Martha standing over him as she tried to avoid stepping in the pool of vomit that he had expelled onto the ground. The other boys stood far away from him as the woman helped him to his feet and into the building. Tom had been acting very strange before he collapsed, but that was normal for him. Neither Dennis nor Herbert made any attempt to follow the pair and would avoid where he had collapsed until Martha came out with a bucket of water to wash away the offensive liquid.

Tom lay in his bed until Martha returned to tend to him. She helped the very weak boy out of the soiled shirt and pants before cleaning him up and getting him into his night clothes and back into bed.

“There has to be something going around for both you and Mrs. Cole to be sick at the same time. Just stay in bed unless you need to use the lavatory and I will bring something up for you as soon as it is ready.”

Tom settled back into bed as he thought about what he had seen. He hadn’t recognized any of the people that he had seen; in fact he had had a hard time recognizing the person he thought was himself. He had never been to any place like the one that he had seen in his vison, it had all looked so different from anything that he had ever seen. The boy closed his eyes and suddenly recoiled when the vision of an enormous serpent filled his mind. He was in a dark tunnel and the snake had been larger than several wagons placed end to end, its maw large enough to swallow him whole. But it seemed to speak to him and follow his directions as he sent it in pursuit of the boy with the glasses and scar.

Martha’s re-entry into the room interrupted the vision and she stood stock still while she watched him as though he was the serpent that he had seen. Her mouth hung open in horror as she stood there.

“What in the name of God were you saying Tom?”

“What do you mean? Was I saying something?”

“Well, you were making horrible noises that sounded almost as if you were hissing like a snake!”

“I don’t remember doing that.”

“You had a very strange look on your face, almost as if you were terribly angry with someone.”

“I really do not remember anything, Martha.”

“I brought you some soup so you need to sit up to eat.”

The boy hurried to prop himself up as the woman placed a tray over his lap and then the bowl of soup in the center of it. A cookie and a glass of milk finished the meal and the boy hurried to begin spooning the hot liquid into his mouth. While there were few things that the boy enjoyed, Martha’s soup was one that he did. He often hoped for a second helping of the savory meal and she made enough that any who asked could have more.

“I will be back up in a short while if you want more,” she said as she turned to walk out through the door to go down to the dining room where Herbert and Dennis were already eating.

“Thank you, Martha.”

While Tom ate quietly he thought about Amy and realized that it was time once again to visit with her. He concentrated on the girl before letting his mind settle on what he wanted.

Amy lay sleeping in her bed and had been once again having a wonderful dream, she saw herself dressed in white while she stood at the front of a church. A minister was standing before her and the man who stood next to her as he droned on in the litany of the marriage ceremony. It was only when an unexpected voice broke into her thoughts that she turned to the man who stood next to her. Her mind reeled when she looked into the snake-like eyes of Tom Riddle as he glared at her.

“You may kiss your bride,” she heard the minister conclude.

As she stood paralyzed Tom reached forward to take her into his arms while a long forked tongue lolled out of his mouth as he prepared to kiss her. She struggled to free herself from the arms that had suddenly lengthened into large snakes that entwined themselves around her. Amy felt herself being gripped tightly as the snakes coiled tighter and tighter around her. Gradually she felt the life being squeezed out of her and she felt faint.

Frantically, she looked out into the crowd of well-wishers hoping to find help only to see every seat occupied by Tom while hundreds of snakes writhed on the ground and slithered towards her. She tried to scream but no sound would come out of her mouth as the long tongue belonging to Tom flashed towards her.

“Amy, you are supposed to kiss your groom,” Tom hissed, “do you not want to be proper. You must show proper form unless you are one of “those women.”

Tom leaned forward to place his lips against hers and she felt the squirming tongue as it lashed against her closed lips in an attempt to enter her mouth. She tried unsuccessfully to push free as the coiling arms seemed to wrap tighter around her with every breath that she inhaled into her heaving lungs.

The nurse, hearing what sounded like a struggle in the bedroom that the child occupied, rushed into the room to find the girl entangled in the bed covers while she gasped for breath. The sheets were tightly wrapped around Amy as the girl thrashed about trying to free herself from the cloth that threatened to smother her. Already the face of the child was turning blue and her eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.

_‘Amy, you are going to die!’_

Amy, nearly to the point of losing consciousness forever, lashed out with her foot as the nurse managed to begin to free her. Not expecting the attack, the nurse doubled over as the foot connected with her midsection. Amy’s attempts were growing weaker and her eyesight was fading as Tom’s face filled her mind. She could see him as he laughed at her while he held up the burned doll for her to see. The skull-like face of the doll opened its mouth and a snake crawled out of the orifice as the child went into convulsions. The old doctor and the nurse finally managed to untangle the sheet from around the neck of the child and were rewarded when she managed to take a deep breath followed by several more before her respiration settled into a more normal pattern.

The child collapsed back onto the bed and lay there limply while the doctor performed a gentle examination of her. The neck of the child was bruised badly and she whimpered softly while her unfocused eyes stared blankly at the ceiling of the room that she had nearly died in.

“We may need to call the asylum, Mrs. Smythe; the girl was obviously out of her mind.”

“Are you certain, Doctor?”

“You heard her as well as I did, she was hissing like a snake and yelling at someone named Tom.”

“But is there not a boy named Tom at the orphanage?”

“Yes, there is, but that does not explain the hissing noises. The child is mentally disturbed I tell you and possibly a danger to others. She very nearly killed herself in that bed, I believe that her mind has collapsed.”

The nurse looked down at the small girl in the bed and wrinkled her nose as a pungent stench reached it. No doubt the girl had soiled herself and from the looks of things had lost control of her bladder as well. The child would need to be bathed and put into fresh clothing while the mattress on the bed would need to be hung side to dry while the bed linens would have to be washed. Thankfully there was another bed in the house to put her into to rest.

The doctor walked out of the room while the nurse set about stripping the clothing from Amy in preparation for a sponge bath. This was one of the few chores that the nurse detested, especially when the patient had soiled themselves. The woman set about the job at hand while the doctor returned to his office to fill out the paperwork on yet another case from Wool’s Orphanage. He was puzzled by the sheer number of incidents from the organization in the last few months which greatly outnumbered the previous years.

“This is all very odd,” he murmured as he filled out the form before him. “What in the Hell is going on in that building and what did that boy, Tom, have to do with it?”

The old doctor had no idea just how close he was to the truth and how horrifying that truth would be when it was revealed.

Tom lay in his bed and smiled as he thought about Amy and what he had planned for her.

“Soon, Amy, very soon, you are going to truly regret what you tried to do to me. I will make certain of it!”

No one was present to hear the manic laughter that erupted from his lips or see the glare in his eyes. Had they been they might have understood just how dangerous Tom Riddle was and what he was capable of.


	12. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Cole has disturbing dreams and finds a frightening presence in her office.

Mrs. Cole sat behind her desk as she considered recent events, some of them more troubling than others. Amy’s confinement to the home of the doctor had stunned her, especially when the man had told her about Amy’s apparent attempt to harm herself by wrapping a sheet around her throat. Whatever had possessed the child to do such a rash thing was beyond her way of thinking, surely the theft of the elephant hadn’t weighed on her mind so strongly that she thought that her only way out of the situation.

But what troubled the woman more was the constant feeling that was like the sensation of fingers running through her mind. More frequently than not she had the notion that something was horribly wrong with her as she had the impression that she was slowly losing her mind as strange thoughts and visions assailed her consciousness. It was almost as if, although she knew that it was impossible, someone was rummaging through her mind. She had seen visions of a pale, hairless man in robes and wondered what that meant. The worst part about the man however were his eyes, they were a brilliant red with slits for pupils. She almost believed that she had met the man as he was strangely familiar.

Another frightening vision was the sight of a skull with a serpent crawling from its mouth. This was the one thing that frightened her the most because she had seen it many times, even as a child. The vision had first come to her at about ten years of age and she had never been able to shake it. This alone had caused her insurmountable difficulties because word of it had gotten around the small village that she was from and, after that, she found very few children willing or allowed to play with her. Only by moving to London had she been able to hide what frightened her so from casual observers. She had counted herself fortunate to be able to find the employment that she had.

She trembled again as the sensation that her mind was being sifted through met her. The feeling of fingers going through her brain nearly drove the woman to insanity but, if it was like every time before, it would end soon. In an effort to fight the distraction she grabbed the glass full of gin and downed it with one swallow, surely that would deaden the nearly incapacitating impressions. As she waited for the gin to take hold of her she found herself thinking of the elephant, which even now was resting safely in the drawer if an ancient steamer trunk that resided in the attic of the orphanage. She reached up to feel the key to the trunk that was attached to a chain around her thin throat. The item was safe where it was hidden, the thief would never find it again.

As the warm feeling of the gin enveloped her mind, forcing away the feeling of being searched, she put her head down on the desk and was soon peacefully asleep. As her eyes closed she saw once more the vision of the skull and the man and she knew that somehow this meant the eventual end of her. The visions always ended the same way, a brilliant glow of green light. Finally, the gin took her completely and she knew only what she could see in her dreams.

As she walked down the familiar path to her home in the country the girl glanced around at to see other children tailing her from a distance and at times could hear the unkind comments that they hurled at her.

“Oi, have you seen any ghosties or floating skulls lately? You’re just as daft as your pa is and nowhere near as good looking!

She turned back to the larger boy who was following her along with his normal gang of cronies. The group held the small school that she attended in a grip of fear and no child or even adult chose to cross them. As bad as the children were, their parents were worse and violence was how they lived. Of course the constables had been called on them but without proof there was very little that could be done. In fact, all that calling the constables in had done was to make the matters worse because once they were gone there was retribution to be paid.

She hurried on her way in the hopes that they would decide to leave her alone, unfortunately they weren’t tired of her yet.

“Oi, I’m talking to you or are you deaf as well as ugly not to mention daft!”

She picked up speed as she felt the hot tears run down her cheeks, not yet breaking into a run but she knew that she would. It was then that a rock whistled past her ear and she knew that others would follow it. It was then that she decided to run because turning to face them was a mistake that she had already made. The bruises from the encounter had taken a long time to heal and she didn’t want a repeat of it. She was going to get one anyhow.

Another rock flew through the air and struck her in the center of her back, the impact dropping her to her knees as the tears began to flow full force. Moments later several children, both boys and girls, surrounded the lone child in the center of the road. The leader of the pack stepped forward and grabbed her roughly by the hair, forcing her to stand to face him.

“You are dumb as well as daft! Did you think that running from us was going to save your worthless hide? I would do the entire village a favor if I threw you down the town well so that we would not have to listen to the ravings of a mad person. It would spare your family the embarrassment of having a crazy daughter; they could just pretend that you never existed. They might even like the idea; perhaps I should just suggest it to them.”

Through her tear filled eyes, the girl looked at the boy who had done nothing but torment her ever since the dreams that she had been having had reached the village gossip. The elderly woman had wasted no time in telling everyone that she could think of about the “troubled” child that the shoe-maker was raising. Before long, no child in the village was permitted around her and she was left to play alone while the other children joined in lively groups in the school yard. Not even the teacher would intervene on her behalf and so the girl was left to go it alone. Now she was encircled by the school children of the village and she knew that it wasn’t going to end well.

“Well, are you going to answer him?” a girl continued sharply. “Should we just take you to the bridge over the river and throw you in? There are plenty of rocks there and I know where some rope is to make sure that you cannot swim away.”

“Leave me alone,” she managed to whisper.

“Did you hear that, mates? She wants us to leave her alone.”

The stinging slap that the larger girl delivered to the cheek of their target nearly spun the small girl around and she fell to the ground as they prepared to punish her further. She covered her head with her hands and was steeling herself for the blows that were sure to come when she heard her father’s voice yelling at them to leave his daughter alone. They scattered like the leaves in a windstorm and she lay there until her father stood over her.

“They are picking at you again, are they?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Well, they are gone now, get inside and get yourself cleaned up. Your mother has dinner started and you need to help her.”

“Yes, Father.”

As the girl turned away from her father she saw a boy standing a distance down the road but couldn’t quite make out his features. He looked vaguely familiar, thin with dark hair, about her age. The strange thing was that as she took a step towards him the boy just vanished and in his place the skull with the snake appeared. She gasped and backpedaled to collide with her father.

“What is it?”

“Do you not see it, Father? The skull and snake that I have dreamed about, it is right there in the middle of the road.”

“I have had quite enough of that nonsense, now go inside and help your mother before I give you a taste of the switch.”

She hurried inside to her mother and found the harried, thin woman toiling to prepare the meal for her family. The woman barely glanced at her daughter as the child set about preparing the table before heading out to help tend to the few animals that they kept. After a short time, the girl looked at her mother hopefully as she spoke to her.

“Are you angry with me, Mother?”

The girl watched as her mother stiffened before turning around to face her child and then took several steps backwards as she realized that the face she expected was not present. Instead, a pale, hairless countenance stared at her with red eyes that had slits for pupils.

“Have you forgotten me already?” came the hissed reply. It was then that the girl started screaming.

Martha, hearing the screams from the office of the matron hurried into the room to render whatever aid she could. She found Mrs. Cole sitting at her desk as peal after peal of sure terror poured from the mouth of the woman. Martha found herself in jeopardy when the matron lunged at her in an apparent attack at some unseen menace. The woman retreated hastily to avoid what she believed would be a life threatening assault.

“Mrs. Cole, what in God’s name are you doing?”

Martha felt her back collide with the door that had swung closed behind her and understood that she was trapped. There was no way possible to turn and open the door to flee without exposing herself to an attack from the rear as the matron continued to advance while also hissing like a snake. Martha was terrified when the matron managed to wrap her hands around her throat and then to attempt to squeeze the life out of her assistant. As bright explosions of light began to flash in the sight of Martha she realized that unless she wanted her life to end she had no choice but to act. She summoned all of her strength and lashed out at the person who was attempting to end her life.

The girl had lunged at the thing which had been her mother and was now attempting to throttle the life out of it. Somewhere she could hear a terrible hissing sound which sounded rather like that of a large serpent and knew that the thing in front of her was the source of the noise. Just as she felt that the battle was nearly won the creature lashed out at her and struck her across the face.

Unprepared for the blow which struck her, Mrs. Cole spun from the impact to collide with her desk which gave Martha the chance that she needed to flee from the room. She reached back to yank the door closed behind her as she left the room and had no sooner closed the barrier when something hit the door from the other side. She held onto the doorknob as she felt an incredible force attempt to pull it out of her grasp. The terrible hissing noise continued to issue forth and Martha held onto her only protection for dear life. Many times the knob was nearly yanked from her hands, which were becoming slippery with perspiration, and she knew that if that happened that she would meet her maker.

As Martha held onto the doorknob, Dennis and Herbert approached down the hallway and stood wide-eyed as the woman held the door closed while they could hear Mrs. Cole on the other side demanding that whoever was holding the door release it. Martha turned and looked at the boys before realizing the danger that they were in and ordering them out of the building. Frightened out of their wits the young boys turned and scurried out of the building as fast as they could.

In the office, Mrs. Cole was trying to determine who was holding onto the doorknob and preventing her from leaving. She could hear Martha on the other side and wondered why she was demanding that the children leave the building. This worried her because, in her gin befuddled mind, Martha had become a major threat to the well-being of the children.

Martha could feel the knob slipping from her hands as the tug from the other side of the room intensified. She prepared herself to bolt when she lost her grip and hoped that she could make it to the front door before the matron caught up with her. It was then that she remembered that she had not seen Tom. Obviously he was still upstairs in his room and had no knowledge of what was transpiring. If the matron got free the boy would not realize that he was in terrible danger. The woman knew that she would never have enough time to get to the boy and still escape.

Abruptly the knob slipped from her sweaty hands and she nearly fell backwards but caught herself and fled towards the door and safety. Mrs. Cole also managed to avoid a fall by catching the back of the chair that she collided with. It was at this time that she happened to glance at the top of her desk and her eyes widened with fear. The screams came next.

The small elephant stood proudly in the center of her desk as though it belonged there, its trunk raised as though it was trumpeting its defiance. She looked at the item as though it was a dangerous fiend that had come to claim her or end her life before bolting towards the door of her office only to have it slam shut in her face.

“I’m going to put you in a dark box like the one that you hid me in. I hope that you enjoy the smell of your own filth while you rot in there.”

Mrs. Cole pounded on the door with both fists while she stared over her shoulder at the elephant as it began to advance on her. The most frightening thing about it all was the horrible change that the figure had undergone. The long trunk had become a snake that now issued forth from the skull of the elephant. It hissed loudly at her as the figure approached the edge of the desk and she understood that soon it would reach her. She increased her frantic efforts to escape before the aberration could get to her and finally managed to yank the door open moments before the thing leapt from the desk.

When she emerged from her office she stepped out into a corridor that she was unfamiliar with. Stark rock walls flanked her and the door that she had come through vanished. The hall stretched as far as she could see in both directions and, at the far ends, a dim green light glowed. Nowhere was any sign of doorways or intersections. It was simply a long seemingly endless corridor and she stood in the center of it wondering which way was the exit.

A sound made her turn and in the distance she could see a figure approaching her slowly. There was something familiar about the figure and she wondered where she had seen it before. As it came into focus she realized that it was the figure that she had seen in the road in her dreams. The boy that had become the skull and snake glided silently towards her save the maniacal laughter that issued from it.

“RUN! RUN NOW FOOLISH WOMAN OR DIE FAR MORE PAINFULLY THAN YOU EVER DREAMED POSSIBLE!”

She needed no more incentive to flee from the advancing figure and broke into a run such as she had not done since childhood. A glance over her shoulder proved that the figure was continuing to pursue her and had spread its arms so that they stretched the entire width of the wide corridor. Her lungs bursting she urged herself forward in an effort to escape the horror that was following her.

“RUN MRS. COLE, RUN BEFORE I CATCH UP WITH YOU!”

She was making progress in her escape when she suddenly came to the end of the corridor. The woman was unprepared for the collision and slammed into the wall full force. Laughter sounded through the hall as the woman went through the wall trailed by a sound not unlike that of shattering glass and shards of what had been the obstacle. She found herself unharmed by the collision, but now falling through space towards the ground far below, a ground that was covered with spikes that pointed straight up and threatened to impale her.

Scream after scream leaped from her throat as she fell towards her death and she turned over in flight to see the figure that had pursued her following her through the air. Shrieking laughter followed her as she neared the ground and the sharp stakes that awaited her. In the moments that she had left she said a brief prayer and hoped that it would be swift. An instant later, falling face down again, she slammed into the ground and felt the many spikes ram through her body with an impact that forced all air from her lungs and a geyser of gore into the air.

It was at that instant that she woke up and lifted her head from the surface of her desk to look around her office. Relief flooded her being as she understood that it had all been a dream, a horrible nightmare. That was until she focused on the small object in the middle of her desk and the screams began again.

The small elephant stood in the middle of her desk as if it belonged there, its trunk raised as though it was trumpeting its defiance. She rose from where she was seated and rushed to the door to yank it open and emerge into the corridor much to the alarmed surprise of Martha and the assembled orphans who were seated in the dining room.

“Mrs. Cole, is everything okay?” Martha asked as she approached; concern apparent on her face. “I heard you screaming.”

“Yes, I’m very fine; I just fell asleep and had a bad dream.”

“You scared the devil out of all of us.”

The matron looked at her assistant and then past her to the children gathered around the table.

“Martha, did you get the elephant out of its hiding spot and bring it back to my office?”

“No, Mrs. Cole, I did not even know where you hid it.”

“But it appeared back on my desk, it had to have had help to get there. It cannot possibly have walked there on its own.”

“But all of the children have been either in their rooms or down here with me. None of them entered your office, I am certain of that.”

“Then how…?”

While the women puzzled over the reappearance of the elephant and the other children sat at the table Tom sat in his room as he smiled broadly.

“Did you enjoy your dreams, Mrs. Cole? Do you think that you are losing your mind about the elephant? Well, by the time that I am finished with you, Mrs. Cole, you will be losing your mind and you will be just as helpless and crazy as poor little Amy! I will make certain of that!”

No one on the lower level heard the laughter coming from Tom’s room and had they done so they would have wondered how the boy was capable of such a noise. Had they known the truth all of them would have been terrified beyond belief and fled the building as swiftly as they could.

Tom leaned back on his bed and gazed up at the ceiling as he thought about what was coming next. None of the other people in the building would have believed it if they had known.


	13. Terror in London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An incident in the orphanage brings terror to London and attention by the Ministry of Magic to the awakening of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Tom sat silently in his room as he watched Billy walk back into the courtyard after a car from the police headquarters dropped him off. The boy hadn’t bothered to glance up to see if Tom was watching and wouldn’t have realized what was about to happen if he had. The flopping shoe laces of the boy had given Tom an inspiration and nearly instantly one of them found its way under his shoe causing the boy to fall forward. Billy, unable to stop himself, landed face down on the courtyard floor with a glorious crash. Tom watched with a grin as the boy collected himself before walking on into the building where Mrs. Cole waited for him.

“So, Billy is back! Well, we shall just see what type of fun I can have with him!”

Mrs. Cole watched as the sullen boy re-entered the building that he had left several days ago. Billy barely spoke to her as she steered him towards her office and she wondered if his spirit hadn’t been broken by the several days that he had spent in jail and out on the work crews. It had been her understanding that the boy had been kept busy cleaning some of the many stables that still dotted the city. One glance at his hands told her that they were badly blistered and, although he had bathed, there was a definite aroma of horse manure about him. No doubt his clothing would require extra cleaning and she hoped that the bath that she was going to require and a change of clothing would remedy the situation.

“Billy, I shall need you to take a bath and change your shirt and pants. You shall also need to clean your shoes. I cannot have you wandering about smelling as though you are still at the stables.”

“Yes, Mrs. Cole.”

The eyes of the matron widened as the respectful response met her ears. She had no doubt that the stay in jail had left a profound impression on the child and wondered just how deep it ran. The woman watched as the boy left her office to make his way back up to his room to gather clean clothing before walking back down to the lavatory to bathe. Billy certainly had none of the sassy attitude that had so often manifested itself about him. He seemed more like a frightened small child than a boy of ten years.

She closed the door to her office before walking behind her desk to sit down. The news from the doctor about Amy had not been good. The child, although in improving physical health, had yet to recover from the incident while she lay in bed. Doctor Barlow had contacted a local asylum and several people from that institution had come to examine the child. The child’s mind seemed to be on the brink of collapse and she was often subject to terrible nightmares. Mrs. Smythe, Doctor Barlow’s nurse, was at her wits end with the child and to the point of refusing to work with her. The woman had suffered several kicks, hits and bites while trying to restrain the girl. Amy had also managed to pull a great deal of hair from the woman’s head during one of the episodes.

Now things were going to be complicated by the fact that several children were going to be coming to the orphanage after a fire destroyed another such structure across town. While this meant that there would many more children would be in the building there would also be several new staff members to assist with them. This meant more people for her to keep track of and much more paperwork but the increase in pay would more than compensate her for the inconvenience.

She had tried to forget the incident that had occurred in her office only days before when she herself had been overcome by a terrible dream that had been punctuated by the appearance of the miniature elephant in her office. How it had appeared was still a mystery because it had been carefully hidden from view and she was certain that only she really knew where it had been concealed. An examination of the hiding spot revealed that the elephant was indeed missing and had somehow traveled to her office. Now it resided in yet another hiding spot and she idly wondered if it would appear again.

The remainder of the orphans had been rather subdued, especially Tom, after the incident with Amy and the radiator. They all were taking great care to stay away from the very hot metal objects to avoid similar injuries. Now ten years old, Tom had become more mindful than he had in the past although many of the children still avoided him as though they were afraid of him. Even Herbert, who normally didn’t mind Tom’s presence, was now avoiding him when possible and Mrs. Cole hoped that the boy would find someone to be friends with once the new children arrived.

A quiet knock at the door preceded the barrier opening and Martha stepping into the room.

“Mrs. Cole, the bus with the new children has just arrived and the new staff members are here as well. Shall I show them into the classroom?”

“Yes, that would be quite fine. Are the bedrooms prepared for the children?”

“Yes, Mrs. Cole, they are ready although I do not believe that the girls’ area has ever been this full before now. There are eight little girls instead of seven, but until we find out about Amy I have left her room alone.”

“Do we have enough rooms for the boys that we are getting?”

“Yes, Mrs. Cole, I managed to place each boy in his own room with the exception of the twins that I was advised needed to be together.”

“What about the rooms for the staff? Are they prepared?”

“I left sheets and blankets on their beds; they can make them on their own.”

“Very well, Martha, show them into the classroom. I will be in to speak to them in a moment. Are our children ready to meet them?”

“All of the boys are in the dining room with the exception of Billy and Tom. Billy is in the lavatory taking a bath and Tom was in his room although I believe that I saw him coming down the stairs just before I came in here.”

“Very good, go ahead and show our new arrivals in.”

Martha left the office to lead the new children and staff into the classroom where the orphans quickly took seats at the desks. The new staff took places at the back of the room as they waited for the matron to enter the room. All of them wondered about Mrs. Cole and how they would like her. Many stories had been spread about her including that she was extremely fond of using her switch on children. When they had learned that they were going to be moved to Wool’s Orphanage many of the children had been terrified of the prospect.

Mrs. Cole stepped out of her office to find the boys sitting at the dining room table with the exception of Billy, who was finishing his bath. The matron called into the room to tell the boy to hurry to finish and then report to the classroom. Billy answered with an acknowledgement as he hurried to dry off after tipping the water from the tub onto the floor so that it could drain. The remainder of the boys followed the matron into the classroom to meet the new arrivals.

Tom was severely disappointed when he beheld the new children. They were obviously a sorry lot having lost everything that they owned in the fire that had swept through their former home. The only things that they now possessed were the clothing on their backs and what few clothes they had in their bags. No toys of any type had made the trip nor had any books from what had been a fair library. One of the small girls wept softly as Mrs. Cole entered the room followed by her charges; a staff member from the destroyed orphanage moved to comfort her.

“I am Mrs. Cole and I want to welcome you all to Wool’s Orphanage. I know that you have been through a terrible ordeal and are surely mourning the loss of your matron but we shall get past all of that and I am certain that you shall be happy here.”

She paused to scan the room as Tom did the same. There were several of the newly arrived boys that were sizing up their new companions as well. His gaze fell upon a large boy that glared at him and knew that this was his newest challenger for control of the orphanage. The boys that he had been dealing with now feared him and he knew that it was time that this new boy got a taste of his medicine. He concentrated on the boy as they glared at each other while the matron continued to speak.

_‘YOU LOOK SICK, VERY SICK! I HOPE THAT YOU DID NOT HAVE A LARGE BREAKFAST! I WOULD HATE TO SEE TOO LARGE A MESS ON THE FLOOR!’_

Abruptly the boy was folded over as he went to his knees while he clutched at his middle and then vomited onto the floor of the classroom, much to Tom’s satisfaction. The children hurried to move away from the ill boy and Tom grinned inwardly at the misfortune of the child.

_‘It may take a few days before I get bored with this and teach you some new lessons. But, until then, I hope that you enjoy the belly ache that I am going to make certain you have.’_

As the boy was hustled away the children were introduced to each other and the new arrivals were soon being given a tour of the orphanage before being shown to their rooms. Tom was disappointed when he completely understood that there would likely be very little in the way of spoils to be taken. These children were even poorer that he was and that gratified him somewhat. He had long believed that there couldn’t possibly be anyone more miserable than he but now he knew that people like that did exist.

As he walked down the corridor he heard a voice calling out to him and he turned to see one of the small boys that had just arrived struggling to open the door to his cupboard.

“Can you help me? The door is stuck.”

Tom glanced at the boy idly for a moment and then, after shrugging his shoulders, walked on down the corridor. The smaller boy, angered by the indifference shown to him, left what he was doing to rush to his bedroom door and hurl his rage at Tom.

“Oi! You rude bastard! All that I did was ask for a bit of help and you just walk away! I knew my parents before they died, did you know yours? Or were you such a problem that they left you here in the middle of the night? Do you even know who your father is or are you truly a bastard?”

Tom stopped and felt his shoulders tense as the words struck home. He could feel the anger building within him as he turned to face the boy who was continuing to send insults towards him.

“What is the matter? Did I hit a little close to the truth? Are you a bastard? Did your parents _kill_ themselves just to get away from you? Does any of your family even care about you?”

Tom stood for a moment as he felt a single tear leave his eye and then he started to walk down the corridor once again. There were too many witnesses that were watching the confrontation and wondering what would happen for Tom to turn and strike back.

“That’s right! Walk away you inconsiderate bastard! Too afraid to turn around and face me, are you? I imagine that you play with the girls because you are a coward that is afraid the boys will hurt him. Do you play with dolls or do they scare you too?”

Tom stopped once again as his fists clenched over and over again while the gathered children watched to see what he would do. Billy stood in his own doorway as he watched with interest as the small red-headed boy hurled hate at the dark headed boy that many feared. Tom turned slowly to face his antagonist but did not approach the other boy.

“Are you just going to stand there and mess yourself or maybe you are going to make a puddle on the floor! I can smell it from here so you must have messed your drawers or maybe you just smell that way all of the time!”

“That is quite enough, Benjamin!”

Both boys turned to see one of the women that had come from the other orphanage emerge from a bedroom. Tom sized the woman up and decided, for the moment, that he would accept her assistance until he decided how to deal with the boy. Moments later the woman was leading the small boy down the stairs and Tom knew where they were headed. The boy would soon get a taste of the switch that the matron kept in her office and Tom couldn’t have been happier.

_‘Just you wait until I get done with you! The matron’s switch will be nothing compared to what I shall do to you. You will soon learn not to mess with me because I’m going to teach you a lesson about respect that you will not soon forget!’_

Tom entered his bedroom and sat down on the chair as he looked out through his window. Again he felt a tear run down his face as he thought about what the boy had said about his status as a bastard.

_‘Why haven’t you come looking for your son, Father? Do you even care about me? Do you even know that I exist? What kind of man are you that you do not even care about your son?’_

He sat quietly at the window for a very long time as tear after tear ran down his face to fall onto the legs of his trousers. ‘Why doesn’t he care about me?’ He sobbed loudly as he covered his face with his hands in the solitude of his room. No one outside of the room realized that the boy was at an extremely volatile point and had they; they would have fled the building to escape his presence. Finally he raised his head to glare outside at the people who went about their business not realizing what was coming.

The boy stared up at the sky and watched as it underwent a strange transformation while emotions roiled within him.. The milling people in the streets began to stop what they were doing as they too noticed the roiling clouds and puzzled over what was occurring.

The clouds in the sky above the city began to gather and blacken as the wind started to howl and thrash at any obstruction in its path. The people watched in awe and terror as lightning began to flash within the clouds before lancing downward in brilliant strikes of energy. One bolt lashed out to strike a large building directly in the center of its roof. Nearly instantly the windows were blown out by the force of the blow from above and the building was engulfed in flames as people hurried to flee the destruction.

As the building blazed terrified citizens hurried to find any cover that they could as more bolts of lightning pummeled the city. A horrifying gale of wind ripped through the streets of London throwing clouds of debris into the air to rain down on areas sometimes far from their points of origins.

Several people who had taken refuge in the shadow of a building had only a moment to think about their lives before they were snuffed out as the structure collapsed in on itself. Screams of terror and pain echoed through the city as the storm raged in the heavens above London. Tom knew nothing about any of this as his mind concentrated only on his anger and pain.

These screams of terror increased when torrents began to pour from the clouds, but they were not torrents of raindrops. Thousands of snakes plummeted from the sky to pelt the scrambling citizens as they attempted to reach cover. Terrified citizens collided with one another as well as objects as they tried to escape the horrific downpour.

A truck driver, blinded by the rain that was pelting his windshield, jerked backwards in his seat as a large serpent slammed onto the hood of his vehicle and then looked through the cracked glass to hiss menacingly at the terrified man. Instinctively he jerked the steering wheel to avoid the menace which put his truck on a collision course with a large building. Only at the last second did he see the obstruction in his path and the helpless people that had taken shelter from the tumult. Screams of terror and pain sounded as pedestrians were either flattened by the truck or incinerated by the fireball that resulted from the impact. The driver, who might have been protected in any other case, was crushed as the top of his cab was flattened by the collapse of the brick walls above.

In the orphanage, the children and staff were terrified by the happenings outside and hurried to get as far from the windows and the terrors outside as they could. It was only when Martha looked around to take stock of her charges that she realized that Tom was not among the huddled children. Taking a deep breath, she hurried from the cellar where they were hiding to rush up to the boy’s room.

“Tom! Tom Riddle! Where are you, child?”

A sudden crash announced the collapse of a window that had been struck by a large serpent. The snake lay coiled on the floor of the atrium as it hissed at the woman who was now attempting to backpedal and escape. Only a brick from the wall falling next to it distracted it from attacking the human that was before it. Martha wheeled and hurried to ascend the other stairs as more of the wall fell to land on top of the snake, crushing the life out of it.

Already, many structures had fallen victim to the chaos and many more were in danger of succumbing to weather that they had never been built to withstand. Many buildings were engulfed in flames and dozens of people were dying in the very places that they had taken refuge.

Martha, having finally reached the corridor that led to Tom’s room hurried to the door and shoved it open to see a scene that she had never imagined.

Tom, sitting at his chair as silently as ever, faced the now shattered window as numerous snakes crawled over and around him. Martha would have screamed if she had been able, but her voice failed her as she watched the boy lift one of the snakes and then gently kiss it on its snout. As the woman watched a horrible hissing noise issued from the lips of the boy and the snake seemed to respond to it. Martha thought for a moment about entering the room to sweep the snakes away from the child to rescue him from what was almost certainly a death sentence but faltered when the boy turned to look at her with a strange light in his eyes. Martha, glancing downward at the sensation of movement at her feet, collapsed in a faint as her mind shut down in an effort to protect itself from the sight.

As swiftly as it had started the deluge began to subside as the child turned his attention from the city outside to the woman who now lay helpless on the floor of the corridor. A hissing noise issued from his lips and he watched as the serpents began to vanish out through the window that had allowed them entry. One serpent, larger than the others, had approached the woman as if to make a meal of her.

“NO! She is not to be harmed! Go now!”

The snake turned to look at him as though trying to decide whether or not to obey the boy before hurrying to follow the others of its kind out of the structure. Tom watched it go and then turned back to the helpless woman who had been the only person to ever really show him kindness.

_‘You will survive, Martha, but only because you have treated me with kindness. Mrs. Cole would not meet such a good fate.’_

He looked at the woman once again before thinking about what she had seen.

_'FORGET WHAT YOU SAW IN MY ROOM, MARTHA!'_

While he moved to kneel next to her the citizens of London began to emerge from where they had taken shelter into a world filled with chaos. Everywhere they looked they saw destruction and mayhem. Smoke rose into the sky from the many fires that were already blazing throughout the streets of the city and the sounds of sirens echoed through the air. Screams also filled the air as injured people called for help or bystanders tried to make sense of the wanton destruction as they attempted to assist where they could.

People scrambled as they hurried to get out of the paths of emergency vehicles or buildings that were tottering as they prepared to collapse. The death toll would be enormous as the stunned citizens of the city took stock of all that they had lost. Days would be spent putting out the fires that had resulted and searching for the missing while it would take months to clear blocked streets and collapsed structures.

His emotions in check, Tom sat stolidly on the floor next to Martha as he gazed out on the stricken city.

“What more can I do?” he said quietly to himself.

In the offices of the Ministry of Magic far below London the word went out.

“There has been an incident of uncontrolled underage magic that we need to investigate.”


	14. Watchers in the Streets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom has come to the notice of the Ministry of Magic and now the time has come to determine his future.

Days after the incident in London a thick pall of smoke still choked the air over the city and the citizenry were forced to cover their noses with anything handy in an effort to keep from inhaling the pollutant. Several buildings still smoldered and were on the verge of collapse while other had finally succumbed to the damage that they had received. Many of the hospitals in the city and those in other cities were overwhelmed by casualties of the “wrath of God” that had smote London. The result of this was an immediate increase in the number of people attending church as they attempted to repent their sins in preparation for the end that they felt was coming.

These same churches were busy for other reasons as funeral after funeral took place for the victims of the happening. The buildings were also being utilized as shelters for the displaced people who had lost their dwellings. This made life for the poor even harder than it had been as they had struggled in the first place to find a home and now even those were gone, along with what precious few belongings they had possessed. Soup kitchens were in even more distress as people who would not previously have visited them now found themselves having to depend on them.

The only benefit to be found was the fact that many who had been unemployed had found work helping to clear the clogged streets and collapsed structures that threatened to choke the city. Employers who had previously turned away undesirable employees now hired them until the work was completed.

Tom looked out through the recently repaired window in his room at the new view that he had. The building which had blocked it before had succumbed to the maelstrom and he could see over the ruin into the area that it had towered over. The only true casualty that the orphanage had suffered had been the tree in the small courtyard. A section of the wall of the collapsed building had fallen on it and snapped it off at the base, a fact bemoaned by the boys who had enjoyed climbing it and those who had taken advantage of what little shade it had provided.

The devastation that the city had suffered surprised the boy and he wondered if he had somehow been involved when he had been angry and upset over Benjamin’s harsh words. He had experienced strange visions the night after the incident had occurred while he slept in the basement with the other orphans. Several times in the night he had cried out and had to be comforted by Martha, who had escaped injury, before he frightened the other children.

The visions had involved the dark-haired man that he presumed was his father as he lay dead. There had been apparently a terrible argument and the flash of green light that had touched his father who had collapsed to the ground immediately. He had seen through the eyes of someone else others in the house dying as well as the horrible green light touched them. But the most terrible thing had been a long drawn out scream from the woman in another house who had thrown herself towards the person that the light was emanating from. She had been defending something; a something that he knew was a small child with dark hair like his own. Tom knew that the child could not possible be himself because he had never known his parents.

Now he sat alone with his thoughts as he stared out through the glass. What was going on? What was happening to him? Was he going mad? A flicker of movement caught his attention and he was surprised to see an elderly man in bright green robes standing outside the fence of the courtyard and  _staring_ at the very window that he was looking out through. The man was seemingly invisible to the people on the street because no one took notice of him and Tom wondered if he wasn’t imagining him because when he looked back at the man he was gone.

Tom looked up and down the street in an attempt to determine where the man had gone and could not see him. He shook his head and then turned away from the window. He failed to see the large crow perched on the pile of wreckage that had once been the building. His stomach told him that it was nearly time for the mid-day meal and he left the room to make his way down to the dining room. The room was much more crowded than it had previously been with the addition of the orphans from the lost structure. He took pains to avoid Benjamin, who had not forgotten the taste of the matron’s switch that he had received the day that the boys had met. Though he was small in stature Benjamin was large in anger and always looking for a fight and Tom was his favorite target.

As he was seated and preparing to eat Mrs. Cole rose to make an announcement to those gathered around the tables.

“I am very pleased to announce to you all that Amy will be rejoining us soon. The doctors have informed me that she is well enough to return to us and I am certain that you will all do your very best to make her feel at home here.”

The matron noticed the sudden change in Tom’s expression when he heard that the girl was going to return. It was no secret that the pair detested each other and they took great measures to stay apart. At least they weren’t fighting as they had before the day that they had explored the cave. Amy was still obviously disturbed by whatever had happened that day and still refused to speak about it. Dennis, the boy who had been involved, merely broke down into tears when the day was mentioned and was nearly distraught when anyone forced the issue.

The announcements finished the children were soon eating their meal and Tom found himself glancing around the room with his gaze settling on the large window that graced one wall. He started when he saw a face surrounded by grey hair that was topped with a green pointed hat looking into the room. The frightening thing was that the face seemed to be looking right at him! Shocked, he momentarily choked on the soup that he had just spooned into his mouth and ended up coughing violently which sent the hot liquid onto the surface of the table.

“Oi! You’re supposed to eat that instead of spitting it all over the place!”

Tom looked with anger at Benjamin, who was grinning broadly at the discomfort that he had once again created while Martha hurried to clean up the spill before it trickled to the floor. Bertha, one of the women who had come from the other orphanage hurried to deal with Benjamin and the boy soon found himself being escorted to the office of Mrs. Cole. A moment after they walked through the door it went closed with a resounding bang and they could soon hear the voice of the woman as she scolded the boy.

Tom glanced at the window again and saw nothing except for what he normally would have. The strange face was gone and all that was visible was the street that the window faced. Tom was puzzled by the appearance of the face because he knew that the window was quite far up on the outside wall and there was no way that someone could stand there to look into the building.

 _‘Am I going mad?’_ he wondered.

Tom would have wondered even more strongly had he known the truth about what he had been seeing. Percival Stuart walked away from the building unnoticed except for the man who saw the large cat that hadn’t been there a moment before. The delivery driver shook his head as he wondered just how he could have missed seeing the animal that had suddenly appeared in his path. He was certain that the cat had not been there before and there was no place that it could have been concealed. Dismissing the incident the man went back to his truck and drove away through the debris strewn alley.

_‘Merlin’s beard, that Muggle nearly stepped on me! Perhaps they are as blind as I have heard. He certainly was not looking where he was going otherwise he would have seen me. It would have served him right had I jinxed him.’_

The citizens that traveled the street failed to notice the pair of cats that seemed be communicating as they sat very near one another and would have dismissed the idea had it occurred to them. The thought that cats might be conversing would have seemed absurd to most people although children would have immediately subscribed to the idea had it been brought to their attention. Just the same the two cats sat on a doorstep side by side while they did communicate.

“Are you very certain that it is the boy, Percival?”

“I am, Edward, the boy is the source of the magic that was brought to the attention of the Ministry. He is rather undisciplined in his use of it, almost to the point of being wild!”

“Merlin’s Beard!”

“I have been watching him for _days_ , ever since the incident here in London. I know that Poppy has watched him as well,” the large cat answered as the crow landed on the light post in front of the structure.

“And the Muggles, have they noticed anything?”

“Edward,” the crow replied, “you know as well as we do that Muggles do not notice anything! They are little better off than a mole or perhaps a bat, they are totally blind to all around them.”

“Poppy, be kind to the Muggles, they are actually very fascinating creatures. They resemble us and are just unfortunates that were not gifted.”

“They are worse than a squib! They are filthy and undisciplined, just look at the state of their city. While they are not responsible for the destruction, the refuse lying about the streets tells me that they merely toss away whatever they no longer wish to possess.”

The trio conversed while life went on around them and no one, not even people who walked past them even noticed them. It was as if the Muggles were accustomed to seeing two cats and a crow sitting near each other as if having a conference. The conversation carried on until the crow was startled by a rock that bounced off of the post right below it, courtesy of a group of schoolboys who were walking away from the school lessons that they had escaped.

“Did you see that one, Ernie? Nearly knocked that crow right off of the post, I did.”

“You weren’t even close, Geoff! Watch this one,” a larger boy said as he let fly with a piece of brick that he had scooped up from the littered streets.

As he prepared to throw the projectile a sudden pain shot through his backside as though a hornet had attacked him. Screaming in pain and reaching back to grab the affected part of his body the boy forgot all about throwing the brick and let it fall to the ground as the other boys also began grabbing at their posteriors. It was as if a swarm of invisible bees had decided to go on the attack and the boys fled from the scene leaving the trio unscathed.

“I do enjoy using the Stinging Jinx on Muggle boys!”

The crow seemed to chortle as it considered what had just happened.

“They will not stop running for a very long time I would guess.”

“That is quite enough from the both of you,” the largest cat announced. “You should be ashamed of yourselves for making light of the shortcomings of Muggles. We are here on very serious business! That boy is the probable cause of what happened here in this city. The Ministry noted an incredible amount of magic being used by an underage person. While it is likely that the boy does not know that he is responsible for the incident we are here to determine just exactly what needs to be done to prevent it from happening again in the future.”

“Can we not just whisk him away and hide him somewhere where he cannot cause harm?”

“POPPY! I cannot believe that I just heard you even suggest that! The boy has a measure of ability and it would be a crime against our world to waste that ability. We need to determine just how much ability he has and inform the Ministry.”

“Is it possible that we have found the missing son of Merope Gaunt?”

“We know about her unfortunate infatuation with the Muggle Tom Riddle and the boy’s name is Tom Riddle, so I believe that is exactly who the boy is.”

“Perhaps, if that is the case, it is best that he IS forgotten, Percival. That whole family was undisciplined and crude…”

“And they are direct descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself! We cannot let that bloodline fade into obscurity! To let a descendant of one of the founders of Hogwarts live the life of a Muggle would be a crime against our world and way of life itself.”

“Then who do we send to speak to the boy to determine if he belongs with us. I know that Minister Wilford has no interest in speaking to a descendant of the Gaunts and, in fact, there are few that would.”

“What about Dumbledore?”

“ _Dumbledore?_ He is a young teacher that has very little experience in these matters.”

“He is not that young and I believe that he is just the person that we need to deal with this issue. He has a way of reaching tough minds and I think that he could get the job done easily.”

“Dumbledore it is then! At least we can leave this filthy Muggle city, my robes will not be cleaned easily after being here all of this time!”

“Poppy! The House-elves will get your robes clean easily,” the large cat answered with a chuckle. “Now, we need to depart before the Muggles start noticing two cats and a crow having a meeting.”

“I doubt very much that they would notice,” Poppy Pivens replied, “after all did we not already agree that they are blind about everything.”

The Muggles around the animals would have been astounded by the sound of laughter coming from the animals and instead heard the loud cawing of the crow as it took flight. The cats vanished into the alley and moments later disappeared completely.

Tom knew none of this and would have been astounded had he known that he was the subject of the conversation. What would have stunned the boy more would have been the content of the meeting and how his life was about to change. None of the three who had met or Tom realized just how many lives would be changed or, for that matter, ended by what had been decided by the trio.

Moments later, Albus Dumbledore looked up with surprise as Percival Higdon apparated into his office deep within Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

“Deputy-Minister Higdon, what a pleasant surprise, to what do I owe this honor?”

“Professor Dumbledore, I have a job for you in London that requires your immediate attention. There has been an incident of use of underage magic that has resulted in many deaths and damages.”

“A use of underage magic that caused death?”

“Yes, the city was badly damaged by underage magic that was so undisciplined that it could have been considered wild magic.”

“Do we know who is responsible?”

“We do.”

“Then I do not understand why I am being involved. Surely the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would be a more appropriate choice to deal with this situation.”

“The child involved has never studied magic at any school of witchcraft.”

“Then they have not been identified?”

“It was an oversight on our part.”

“I still do not understand.”

“Professor, the child is believed to be a descendant of the Gaunt family. We believe that he is the son of Merope Gaunt and the Muggle Tom Riddle.”

“The son of a witch and a Muggle?” Dumbledore asked.

“Yes, this is something that would not sit well with the Gaunts, a half-blood in the family. Thankfully they have no idea of his existence.”

“What do you wish for me to do?”

While the wizards talked quietly the orphans were busy doing their school work and Tom was watching Benjamin from across the room. The boys were constantly at odds and had even fought while out at play. Both had ended up with bruises from the incident including a nasty black eye that Benjamin had received when Tom landed a punch during the confrontation.

“Before you leave this classroom you all need to turn in your arithmetic assignments,” Mrs. Cole announced from her desk at the front of the room. “There will be no exceptions and certainly no excuses accepted.”

Tom looked at Benjamin once again as the boy struggled to finish the assignment and a thought came to his mind.

‘I wish that your paper would be blank when you turn it in! It would serve you right.’

Benjamin looked up to see Tom glance at him and returned the look with a stuck out tongue that went unobserved by the adults. He glanced back down at his paper and was horrified to see that it was completely empty of the work that he had done. The boy seized his pencil and began to furiously write on the sheet of paper only to watch his figures vanish before his eyes. He doubled his efforts to finish the assignment and noticed that as he wrote the things that he had produced disappeared. Suddenly the bell rang at the front of the room and he looked up to see the matron rise from her chair to gaze out over her students.

“You shall all pass forward your papers and the students at the front of the room will collect them.”

Benjamin felt tears rise in his eyes and a terrible feeling in his midsection as he handed his paper forward where it was collected along with all of the others from his row. The only writing that it held was his name at the top of the page and he knew that he was in for an incredible amount of trouble. The boy watched as the matron took the papers from the students that had collected them and then began to look through them. She suddenly stopped at one sheet and looked up from it to glare at him.

“Benjamin Stiles, you shall remain after class while the others go out to play. This assignment shall be done and done swiftly. You also have an appointment with me in my office, an appointment that you shall have immediately. The rest of you are dismissed until reading class.”

Tom rose with the rest of the children and they hurried to get out of the room before the wrath of the matron reached for them. While they all wanted to hear the boy get his punishment they also all feared being caught listening to the proceedings. This was a crime punishable by a trip into the office of the matron and a taste of the switch that she was going to wield.

Outside at last, Tom hurried to find a place to play while Benjamin had a lot less fun at the hands of Mrs. Cole. He still wondered how he was able to make happen what he had wished for. It was almost like magic, but he knew that no such thing existed so his ten year old mind put that thought aside as he played.

In the office Benjamin stood before Mrs. Cole as she glared down at him while she held the nearly blank piece of paper.

“Honest, Mrs. Cole, I had that nearly finished and then the writing just disappeared. I watched it disappear as I wrote other things. It was like magic!”

“There is no such thing as magic! You are lying to me once again and I shall not tolerate lying, Benjamin. Being untruthful will solve nothing and will land you in this office or in jail when you are older.”

The boy watched as the woman reached for the switch and knew what was coming. None of the other children were witness to what occurred next and they all were grateful that they weren’t getting a share of the punishment.

Tom played in the courtyard, not knowing that his life would change very soon in a way that he never would have imagined in his wildest dreams. The worlds around him, both Muggle and Wizarding, would also experience a change that was both unexpected and tragic.

*****

Many months later, after much observation to confirm what they already knew to be true Professor Albus Dumbledore sat in front of young Tom Riddle as they discussed his present and future. At first wary about the nature of his visitor, and quite convinced that Mrs. Cole thought him mad and had arranged for a doctor to take him to an asylum, Tom was ecstatic to find that he was different from the rest of the orphans after all and now he knew the reason why.

Dumbledore had been quite specific about his expectations at Hogwarts, thievery was not permitted and all of the things that had come to light in the cupboard of the boy were to be returned to their rightful owners. Without much fear, but with more than a bit of regret at their loss he returned the purloined objects although the truck remained forever hidden in the closet. He had no way of returning it to its previous owners any more than he could explain the state of repair that it was in. Mrs. Cole was stunned when the boy returned the items although she had suspected that he was the culprit. What stunned her and the recipients of the returned items even more were the sincere apologies that accompanied the returns.

Tom left the orphanage one morning bright and early after being bid farewell by the staff. He barely looked back at the room that he was departing, knowing that when school was not in session he would have to return to it. The blank walls and sparse furnishings made no impression on him except for an intense desire to leave it all behind. He hurried on his way following the directions that he had been given by Dumbledore months before and soon stepped through the portal into Diagon Alley where his life changed forever.

The wand maker, Ollivander, never knew as he handed the phoenix feather cored wand to the dark-haired boy that he had changed the course of many lives. He never considered how the other wand that bore the brother feather of Tom’s wand would lie in wait for many years on his shelf before it was handed to another dark-haired boy and would also change many lives. As the door closed behind the boy the older man shuddered as though a cold breeze had passed through him before he returned to his craft in preparation for more new students to visit his shop.


	15. Memories and Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part of Tom's story comes to a close as the world waits to see what will come next.

_Twenty years later_

Her eyes leapt to the headlines of the newspaper that she was reading as she took a moment from her housework and she shuddered as a name that she remembered from her past came roaring back into her present.

**Former matron of Wool’s Orphanage dies in a mysterious accident.**

She read the article repeatedly as she tried to make sense of what it was saying. Mrs. Cole had been found dead in her home the victim of an apparent collapse of her ceiling. The doctor who had examined her body said that he thought that she had been dead before the structure had collapsed. She found that strange because she had met with the woman, whom she had been fond of, and found the old woman very spry, healthy and happy.

The years away from the orphanage had helped Mrs. Cole and neither of them had been sad to see the remains of the building destroyed following the war. A German bomb had hit the building and it had burned nearly to the ground leaving no choice but to demolish it. The strange thing was that a toy truck had been found in the wreckage seemingly undamaged by the devastation around it. It had brought memories back to the women although neither of them were sure where they had seen it before.

She carefully clipped the article from the paper and then opened a scrapbook that she had pulled from her desk. Opening it to a blank page she taped the article into the book where it took residence next to articles that attested to the demise of several former residents of the orphanage. Billy, Herbert, Benjamin, Dennis, they were all there which was a fact that frightened her immensely. Someone was apparently tracking down the former orphans and killing them.

Amy hoped that, since she had changed her name when she had married, the person that was killing the people that she had known all of those years before would be unable to find her. True, she still lived in London, but in a much nicer area of the city. Her home was in fact on the other side of the city in an area that was largely rebuilt after the damage that had been wrought during the bombings.

She knew that Martha was now working in a hospital and very happy with her new life. They saw each other only very occasionally and she hoped that the woman was well.

A glance around her living room proved that the residence was in the neat order that she preferred although it wouldn’t be for long once her husband returned from his work. Their children were away at their grandparents’ home which offered her a chance to relax.

As she thought back to her days at the orphanage her memory settled on _that boy_. There had been nothing in the paper about him and she had often wondered what had become of him. Tom had been very frightening and she had not been sad at all to see him leave when he had left to go to his special school.  Tom had made great boasts about the fact that his strange visitor had offered him a chance to go to a school that could teach him wondrous things. Although many of the children had envied his opportunity, none of them had wanted to go with him.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she glanced at another article which projected news about several mysterious deaths at Little Hangleton. An entire household had been destroyed, no one spared in an attack which left several people dead. The most frightening part, however, was the one name that stood out in her mind, Tom Riddle. Obviously it could not be the Tom that she had known because of his age, but she wondered if it might not be his father.

She was started out of her reverie as a sharp rap at her door sounded and she wondered who it might be because the post had already been delivered and she was expecting no one. A moment later she opened to see a tall dark-haired man that looked vaguely familiar and her mind registered this with shock as she realized who she was facing.

“Tom Riddle?”

“Hello, Amy, I’m glad that you remembered me. So many of the others had forgotten who I was, but I reminded them.”

“I don’t understand, what do you want and how did you find me?”

Tom faced her for a moment as she held the door slightly open between them. This was all too like the ones before her, they had recognized him far too late and there was nothing that they could say that would change what was going to happen. Amy, frightened by the sudden look in Tom’s eyes, slammed the door and slid the lock closed. As she backed away from the door Amy realized that her life was about to end and that there was nothing that she could do to stop it.

A moment later a green light passed through the closed door to envelope her and the last thing that she saw was Tom’s smiling face in her mind. Tom walked away from the house as she collapsed to the floor where her husband would find her.

_‘They are all gone now, save Martha, and I have no quarrel with her.’_

Everyone who knew about his past was gone and now he had the future to think about. His smile broadened as he vanished into the thick fog that had abruptly appeared without explanation, much to the consternation of the startled Muggles who were trying to go about their business. Tom thought happy thoughts because no one could stop him now and he had no one to fear.

“I shall rule the world!”

The Muggles around him heard these words and were startled to see the young man simply fade into nothingness as he vanished as swiftly as the fog that surrounded him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank and acknowledge J.K. Rowling for the characters and surroundings that I used as a basis for this story. Tom Riddle has been a fascinating character to write and I have enjoyed filling in some of the areas that we never got to read about or see on screen. While this is the last chapter of the story it is not necessarily the end of it. I am giving thought to adding material in the form of chapters that would bridge the existing ones and have written stories which will cover his time at Hogwarts. Please let me know what you think of the story and give any suggestions that you might have. I always enjoy reading comments from those who have read my work.
> 
> Evil Otter


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